After five years of rapid growth, Keller Williams Realty Mid-Willamette will move out of leased office space and into a home of its own. The real estate firm announced plans to construct a 6,000-square-foot building at 1121 N.W. Ninth St., the former site of The Gables restaurant.

“Our goal is to make this building pop,” operating partner Sue Long told a roomful of Keller Williams agents, customers and well-wishers Tuesday evening at the firm’s current office in Avery Square. The new building will have 22 offices, a large training room and a solar power array. The design features a brick exterior and a peaked roof.

Long said demolition should begin in about two weeks on the old Gables building. The restaurant has been vacant since it closed last year. She said the new building should be open by the end of September and estimated the total cost of the project at “more than $1.5 million.”

Long opened the area’s first Keller Williams office in 2004 with 800 square feet of space and a handful of agents. Today, Keller Williams Realty Mid-Willamette has offices in Corvallis and Albany with 90 brokers covering Linn and Benton counties and the Salem area.

In addition to providing plenty of office space and a lot of parking, Long said, the new location should help raise the firm’s visibility still further.

“It’s kind of in the heart of what’s happening on Ninth Street,” she said.