Redmond Police are investigating a suspicious death following the discovery of a dead body Wednesday morning near an office complex at 15446 Bel-Red Road.

A groundskeeper notified dispatch around 10:35 a.m. of the corpse lying face down in a thick ivy patch between an occupied office building and the abandoned parking lot of the former Group Health clinic near 156th Avenue Northeast.

There was blood at the scene, according to Redmond Police spokesman Jim Bove.

“We’re calling it a suspicious death,” Bove said. “It could be suicide, it could be homicide.”

The victim, identified as a white male between the ages of 40 and 50, was wearing dark clothes and no jacket. Police are withholding further details about the man’s identity until authorities notify his next of kin.

A large portion of the abandoned parking lot was cordoned off throughout most of the day as police conducted an investigation with help from King County Search and Rescue.

Bove said it is still not clear how the victim died.

“There was no blood when we flipped the body over,” he said. “We were hoping to get some clear answers, but we didn’t.”

Police believe the body was dead at least 24 hours before a city of Redmond employee and a Group Health grounds keeper discovered it approximately 25 feet from the occupied office complex.

The case, which sprang up just three days before the new year, could end up as Redmond’s first and only homicide of 2009. One murder and one murder-suicide took place in the city last year.