As most know after 74 years in business, Spokane's iconic White Elephant store closed it's doors last year. Today the stores building at 1730 N. Division , and a affiliated home and apartment structure on the same site sit completely vacant. But, a recent proposal might cause the site to have new life while removing the current buildings.
A proposal recently went through a pre-development conference with the city, and is now in the SEPA application phase to demolish the buildings and re-develop the site with two fast food restaurants. Along Division would be a 2,300 square foot Panda Express restaurant with drive thru, and on the other end of the site along N. Ruby would be a 2,000 square foot fast food restaurant that is shown as having a drive thru as well, although that tenant is still listed as TBD.
Permits have yet to be pulled for the new development but in the SEPA application it indicates the developers would like begin demolition in "early 2021" with construction done in Summer-Fall of this year for "phase one", which would be the Panda Express location. The middle of the site would be surface parking area with 52 total parking spaces once both phases are fully built out.
No general contractor is shown yet and the architectural design, for at least the Panda Express, is being done by Klover Architects,Inc. of Lenexa,KS. We plan to monitor this project as it advances so stay tuned.