REDMOND – A commercial building boom is underway in Redmond in the area of Fred Meyer.

Samantha and Delbert Kline have closed Perfect for U TV and Appliance at the corner of 11th Street and Highland Avenue in Redmond after 18 years. The store’s closure makes way for a five-building, 46,800-square-foot office and retail development on a block that is bordered by Highland Avenue, 11th Street, Veteran’s Way and Indian Avenue.

The development, by Redmond dentist John Pavlicek, will include an 8,400-square-foot, two-story office building, half of which will be for Pavlicek’s dental practice.

The other four buildings on the site will include a 5,000-square-foot restaurant, a 3,700-square-foot bank with a drive-through window, a 4,500-square-foot office building and a two-story, 25,200-square-foot office and retail building at the corner of Veteran’s Way and Indian Avenue.

Pavlicek’s project, called Chelsea Square, is part of a building boom not only in the greater Redmond area, but also in the vicinity of Fred Meyer. The Nolan Town Center at S.W. 23rd and Highland will feature a 42,000-square-foot Ray’s Food Place and four other buildings totaling 18,000 square feet. The $3.1 million project is expected to be completed in the summer of 2005.

Another neighborhood retail center, to be located between 17th Street and Canyon Drive on Highland Avenue, is still in the predevelopment stages, but planning documents show a seven-building development totaling 44,370 square feet. The plan includes a 22,660-square-foot grocery store.

Also in the Fred Meyer area, Todd Sheldon, a Redmond optometrist, and KCBC Enterprises, LLC plans to build a new 11,200-square-foot office within the next year or two on the triangular shaped property across Indian Avenue from Chelsea Square.

Oregon Realty is building 6,000-square-foot commercial building next to Sterling Savings Bank in the Fred Meyer complex.

Pavlicek said he expects to break ground on the dental office in October, with three more buildings to follow over 18 months. He declined to say how much the development would cost, but Deschutes County property records show Pavlicek paid just under $1 million for the three parcels needed for the development.

Pavlicek’s development will focus primarily on office space.

”There’s a lot of retail space going in (around) town and we’re not going to compete with that,” he said.

The architect of Chelsea Square is Richard Brooks of CIDA, an architecture and engineering company from Portland. The development represents another step in Redmond’s development, according to the developers.

”It’s getting a little bit more upscale,” said Bruce Kemp of Compass Commercial Real Estate Services. ”It’s time to step up to that level.”

For Samantha Kline, 60, owner of Perfect for U, the changes in Redmond simply means no more six-day workweeks.

”We just figured we needed some time to have a day off once in a while,” she said, adding that she wants to spend more time with her grandkids.

The Klines plans to expand their store in Prineville and hope their Redmond area customers will follow them. Samantha Kline said she deals with many of her repeat customers by telephone, guiding them to an appropriate appliance and then delivering it to their home.

”I hope my Redmond customers will still call us,” she said. ”We’ve been around long enough that we know what people want.”