Northern Quest Resort & Casino expanding with planned new hotel tower.

   

The Kalispel Tribe has announced they will soon break ground on another new expansion project at their Northern Quest Resort & Casino in Airway Heights. The new expansion project includes construction of a new hotel wing featuring nearly 200 additional hotel rooms. 

The new hotel will be located west, but adjacent to the current hotel tower, adding over 190 rooms and bringing the resort's capacity to more than 440 rooms. A skywalk will connect the current hotel on the northwest side to the new addition. The Kalispel Tribe plans to break ground on the new project in March 2021, with completion scheduled for early 2023 and will create approximately 150 new permanent jobs.

The new hotel will include five connected buildings inspired by the concept of a Native American fish weir. Weirs we're often constructed by groups of Tribal members and used as a community-focused fishing techniques where Native peoples could gather to fish, trade and celebrate. The rooms in the new hotel will be the same quality of their existing rooms that include triple-body-jet spa showers and will be entirely non smoking.

Additionally the Tribe's master plan calls for the potential addition of a more than 30,000 square foot conference center that will be added depending on the demand for groups and meetings business in the coming months and years. 

The Kalispel Tribe has hired the design-build team of Lydig Construction of Spokane, Integrus Architecture of Spokane and Ankrom Moisan of Seattle. A long with several other design-build partners. 

New Restaurants are still coming to the area!

 New restaurants are coming to the Spokane / Coeur d' Alene area! Yes, despite COVID's grip continuing to tear down the industry, some are brave enough to open new businesses. To that I applaud them and highly encourage you to pay these places a visit.

Some aren't open yet as of this post, just a overview of what we're hearing so you can follow along with their progress....

Sirinya's Thai Restaurant & Lounge - Not open for business yet but they did file for a liquor license to go into the former Hong Kong Restaurant building at 13614 W. Sunset Hwy. in Airway Heights.

Black Straw Tea Bar & Kitchen - Known mostly as the former boba tea seller that had been located inside the Kobe Hibachi restaurant on Division. Black Straw is moving up with a new location of their own in Spokane Valley. The new location will have at least some food items added to the tea's and they should be open within the next couple of weeks at 11808 E. Sprague Ave.

Kagen Coffee & Crepes is a locally owned business with two locations already open in the Tri-Cities area. They are remodeling and will open soon in the former Starbucks at 905 E. Hawthorne in North Spokane.

DeGar's Reef Taco is now open for business in the former North Spokane Del Taco location at 12501 N. Division Suite #6 and is even operated by the same owner as the former Del Taco franchise. Currently open as drive through only.

Chick-fil-a I'm trying to keep this list mostly local but I know many would notice if I don't acknowledge the new Chick-fil-a restaurant opening soon on Newport Hwy by the Y. Opening date will be December 1st.

Other chain's opening soon... include a new Chipotle Mexican Grill on N. Newport Hwy and Olive Garden along Indiana Ave. out front of Spokane Valley Mall. 

The Tea Boba Bar has filed for building permits to remodel and open a new boba tea business at 1227 W. Summit Pkwy in Kendall Yards.

Brews Bros. Bar & Bistro will open soon in the remodeled lobby of the Wells Fargo building at 601 W. 1st in Downtown Spokane

Tavolata is a popular Italian restaurant from a Seattle restaurateur that will be opening in the coming months in the former Downtown Spokane Olive Garden at 221 N. Wall St. 

Speaking of Downtown Spokane... we're hearing a food truck might be setting up a new brick and mortar location Downtown soon. Out of respect for them that's all I'll say right now.

Bruchi's Airway Heights the local chain of Bruchi's, who is famous for their cheesesteaks and subs will open a new location on Dec. 1st in Airway Heights at 9013 W. US 2 by the Hilton Garden Inn hotel ( technically in the Spokane city limits, but same area )

Cascadia Public House will be opening a new second location soon in the Logan Neighborhood, they will be where the now closed Geno's was at 1414 N. Hamilton.

The Pizza Co. North Spokane new owners recently acquired the former Mackenzie River Pizza location in North Spokane ( 9225 N. Nevada ) and plan to open a new restaurant called The Pizza Co. . According to their social media it says they will specialize in pizza, burgers, salads, melts, wraps and draft beer.

Checkerboard Taproom I'm hoping to do a write up about this place soon either on the site or Instagram. Formerly the Checkerboard Bar and considered Spokane's oldest bar has been completely remodeled under new owners and a new menu and cool patio space. The bar, which also has an awesome food menu can be found at 1716 E. Sprague. 

Zona Blanca chef Chad White's popular ceviche restaurant is moving to a home of it's own at 157 S. Howard in Downtown Spokane. 

Pho Lei 1 is a new Vietnamese restaurant that is now open in Coeur d' Alene's Riverstone Development. They can be found next door to Starbucks at 2360 N. Old Mill Loop Suite J101

Did I forget someone? me... never

I'm sure I don't know them all or missed a very obvious one that I should have remembered, so please reach out to me at matt.behringer@inlandnwbusiness.com and let me know. Or, if your connected to one of the places above, contact me too, I want to learn about your business!

Airway Auto Licensing office moves to new larger building.

Airway Auto Licensing has a new home in Airway Heights, the former Rosa’s Pizza. The office is a subagent of the Washington State Department of Licensing who's owners recently purchased the former restaurants building and completely remodeled the structure from floor to ceiling. 

The new office's address is 13101 W. 14th Ave. Airway Heights, WA 99001. And, as part of the remodel, a drive thru window was also added so that customers can renew their registration online at http://www.dol.wa.gov , request the Airway office, and pick up via the convenient drive thru.

Construction underway for phase II of the Euclid Logistics Center project in Spokane Valley

 Adjacent to the Spokane Business & Industrial Park, the new Euclid Logistics Center is pushing forward with site work and some foundations now being poured for the center's second building. The new building will similar to the first building, which is now complete and fully leased.

The second building will be a 120,000 square feet concrete tilt up style structure featuring 36 foot clear heights, cross-dock capacity, 135 foot truck courts and built to LEED standards. Divcon is the contractor and the new Phase II building will be ready for occupancy in the Spring of 2021. The first phase building will be home to Commonwealth Handling Equipment Pool, IEDS Logistics and third tenant that cannot be confirmed but building permits show it as a Home Depot market delivery operation facility. 

The completed phase one building

Once fully built out the Euclid Logistics Center will offer 500,000 square feet of newly created warehouse / industrial space in four buildings. All of it located adjacent to the Spokane Business & Industrial Park as the new buildings are being constructed on the southeast side of development. Owned and managed by Crown West Realty, The Park is one of the region's employment centers with over 120 resident companies employing in excess of 4,500 people.

For more information about the Euclid Logistics Center and the other local Crown West Realty properties, contact Dean Stuart at 509-924-1720 or dstuart@crownwest.com. Also be sure to check out http://thepark.biz for more on the Spokane Business & Industrial Park.

New commercial building planned on W. Francis for The Man Shop corporate office and another tenant

 Watch for a new modern looking commercial building coming soon at 801 W. Francis in North Spokane. Plans call a 5000 square foot building with ground breaking planned for early 2021 and a completion date in or about June or July of next year.

                           Photos used with permission, courtesy of The Man Shop

The Man Shop barbershop chain will occupy a portion of the building as their corporate offices and will lease out the remaining 2800 square feet to a separate tenant. The owners are seeking potential tenants now with more info available by contacting mike@themanshops.com . The available space will be delivered to grey shell and will lease for $24 per square foot, the leasable space also benefits from good visibility in a high traffic corner location.

Finley Construction will be the contractor for the new building, with Russell Page Architecture doing the architectural work and the exterior being designed by Shaleesa Mize at Pacific Design Co. 

Allegiant Air to begin direct flights from Spokane to Orange County and Las Vegas

 Even more flight options are coming soon to Spokane International Airport. This comes following a announcement today by Las Vegas based Allegiant Airlines of several new flights, including some from Spokane. Currently Allegiant has no flights in or out of Spokane.

Plans call for Allegiant to begin service to John Wayne Airport in Orange County from Spokane on Feb. 18th 2021 with fares as low as $69 each way. Additionally another new flight will be added on Feb. 11th to Las Vegas with fares as low as $49 each way.

The new flights are part of a larger announcement of 15 new non stop flights and the addition of service to Spokane and Orange County which we’re previously not served by the airline.

For more info on Allegiant Air visit www.allegiantair.com

New Ace Hardware store to open in the Indian Trail neighborhood

 Watch for a new Ace Hardware store coming soon to the Sundance Plaza shopping center in Spokane's Indian Trail neighborhood. Like most Ace stores this one will be locally owned and operated and will be operated by the same owners as the stores on Francis and the one at Ash & Rowan.

Site of the future Ace Hardware store, photos used with permission courtesy of the Friends of Indian Trail Facebook page, thank you!

This new Indian Trail Ace Hardware will be located in 5040 square foot space at 8917 N. Indian Trail Rd. and is tentatively set to open sometime around February or March of 2021. The store will offer merchandise from plumbing, electrical, paint, tools, hardware, BBQ and power equipment departments. They also do plan to open a small garden center in the spring to accommodate a selection of live goods.

The new location will be smaller then the owner's other two stores but they promise to " squeeze just as much as much in that building as we can " according to Dawn Gregg, Owner. They also will be able to quickly transfer product from their existing stores to this new location for customer requests. The owner also went on to say " we are excited to be able to serve those neighbors closer to their homes that have supported us for the last 17 years ".

For more information Ace Hardware, check out their website at- http://www.acehardware.com

New Brews Bros. Coffee shop to open in remodeled Wells Fargo Center lobby

 

                                                                  INBW staff photos

A few months ago, Washington Trust Bank acquired another piece of Downtown Spokane's skyline with the sale of the Wells Fargo Tower at 601 W 1st Ave. . Despite the sale the building still maintains it's Wells Fargo Center name. And as of the sale, an article ran by KXLY reported the 17 story building was approximately 85% occupied with primarily office space.

In January of this year Washington Trust started a large remodeling of three floors of the high rise that is now nearing completion. As part of that project, the lobby space has been updated and modernized, as well as a new look for the ground floor plaza space out front ( see photos ).

Additionally, the new lobby will house a new coffee shop that is tentatively set to open in December. The new coffee vendor will be a location of Brews Bros., and will be the small chain's third store and second in Downtown Spokane as another will remain open near the STA Plaza at 734 W. Sprague.

This new coffee shop will go by the name Brews Bros. Bar & Bistro and will take up an 1000 square foot space that will include some indoor seating and an outdoor patio. We're also told the new location will have food menu and an expanded selection of beer and wine.

Developer plans to remodel and re-purpose medical office building near Sacred Heart

 Currently operated as a medical office building, a big change is about to come to the building at 44 W. 6th on the Lower South Hill. That building's current tenant, Providence Sacred Heart's medical resource center, is set to vacate the building sometime early next year. And, the new owner is planning to come in quickly after the current tenant leaves to begin an extensive renovation project.

INBW staff photos of the building taken earlier this week

Rendering of the completed building entry, courtesy of Trek Architecture.

The plans are to begin construction sometime around April of next year to update the building and convert to a residential use. Once complete the building will consist of 23 apartments with onsite parking, a roof deck and amenity space. Under the current plan the apartments will be a mixture of short-term Airbnb style rental units and long term market rate apartments.

Example renderings of the completed apartments, used courtesy of Trek Architecture. 

The project is being done by developer Scott Issak working with Jordan Tampien of 4 Degrees Real Estate and Evan Verduin of Trek Architecture who is doing the design work for the project. This is the same team who collectively completed the mixed-use Parkview West building along W. 1st Ave. on the other side of Downtown just a few months ago.

New boba shop opening in Kendall Yards

I'm about to " spill the tea " on The Tea, well some of it at least. That's because building permits have been filed and are currently under review for a new boba tea shop called The Tea coming soon to Kendall Yards. Plans call for the new business to remodel and open in a small 312 square foot space at 1227 W. Summit Pkwy in the heart of the Kendall Yards Business District.

Renderings used courtesy of HDG Architecture, thank you!

The Tea would occupy the space that was formerly the Paper & Cup Coffee Shop in the same building as The Inlander. We we're able to track down some of the new shops renderings from our friends over at HDG Architecture who did the design work for the space and we have reached out the businesses contact but have not yet heard back to learn more about what The Tea will offer and when. I'll update this space when we know more, looking forward to this one so stay tuned!

Work starts on what will someday be a large business park near Amazon on the West Plains

It's already happening, the addition of a massive Amazon Fulfillment Center on the West Plains is spurring more new development to the area. This time in the means of a massive commerce park, that was originally thought up by Spokane developer Harlan Douglass a few months ago.

Currently called the Douglass Commerce Park, the development would be built out to the east of the Amazon center with a total of 19 warehouses on a 12 acre site and over 1.4 million square feet of new industrial / warehouse space at full build out. The site is bound by Geiger Blvd on the south / Thomas Mallen Rd on the east and Electric Ave on the north, all taking advantage of the closeness of I-90 and the Spokane International Airport.

The project will be built out in phases and crews are now working on site work and foundations for the first phase, which will consist of two warehouses. These new buildings will be located towards the back of the site near the corner of Electric Ave. and Thomas Mallen Rd. , on the main site plan they are considered warehouses 14 and 15. The under construction buildings will be 80,000 square feet and 96,000 square feet respectably and there has not been any word as of yet about what business will operate in these new spaces.

Stay tuned as we intend to watch this project as it progresses in the coming months and years.