YAKIMA -- A new upscale restaurant and wine bar will celebrate its groundbreaking today at the Creekside West business park development at South 40th and Washington avenues in Yakima.

Sage Restaurant and Wine Bar, a two-story restaurant, signed on as the first tenant for Creekside West, a 24-acre project being developed by Wide Hollow Development LLC.

Sage's head chef is Jeff Eutenier, who previously served as executive chef at Zesta Cucina at Glenwood Square the last five years.

Michelle Euteneier, who will serve as general manager, described Sage Restaurant as an upscale but casual dining restaurant.

She said the restaurant will include a Northwest cuisine with an emphasis on products grown in the Yakima Valley. The restaurant owners also want to highlight the Valley's wine industry.

"We really are staying with what we can get here, things that are grown here," she said.

The two-story restaurant is expected to open in late August or early September and will have dining space for 160 on the main floor and 50 upstairs.

The wine bar will seat 50, and outdoor seating will be available for another 60 people.

Creekside West is located across 40th Avenue from the firm's Creekside Business Park and will be a more mixed-use development, with retail, restaurant and professional space and what Chris Waddle, a commerical real estate consultant with Creekside Commercial Real Estate, called flex incubator space that could take up as many as 10 of the more than 20 lots in the development.

"The idea for flex space is a nice facade that ties in to the rest of the park," Waddle said. "There will be an office/reception area and maybe a mezzanine that opens back to warehouse space. We already have a couple of interested parties for the flex space."

With those buildings coming later, the focus is on the new restaurant that Waddle said will be a centerpiece for the development.

Jeff Euteneier and his wife, Michelle, are in partnership with Yakima dentist Owen Packard and his wife, Amy.

Michelle Euteneier, who will serve as general manager, said the 6,600-square-foot restaurant will be about the same size as Olive Garden in downtown Yakima.

Creekside West is being developed on property that is co-owned by the city of Yakima and Yakima County and leased from the Yakima Air Terminal.