Journal of Business back issues from September 2008:
Montana insurer acquires May-Davis brokerage here
Sep 11, 2008; ... Western States Insurance, a big Missoula, Mont-based insurance brokerage that has an office here, says it has acquired May-Davis Inc., a longtime Spokane Valley brokerage. Western States employs 23 people at its office at 123 E. Second and has retained May-Davis' five employees, ...
Wells Fargo insurance unit buys assets of agency here
Sep 11, 2008; ... Wells Fargo Insurance Services Inc., a Wells Fargo & Co. subsidiary that claims to be the nation's largest bank-owned insurance brokerage. says it has acquired the assets of Char Clark & Associates Inc., a 24-year-old Spokane agency. The Chicago-based company says the acquisition ...
Law building planned here will look like White House
Sep 11, 2008; ... Spokane lawyer Amos Hunter says he plans to develop an office building near the Spokane County Courthouse that would be modeled after the White House, in Washington, D.C., in its architectural style. Hunter is a principal in Spokane Law & Justice Center LLC, which will own the ...
Builder here wins $3 million West Plains prison project
Sep 11, 2008; ... The Washington state Department of Corrections plans to build a $3.6 million treatment program building at its medium-security corrections center in Airway Heights. T.W. Clark Construction LLC, of Spokane, has been awarded a $2.97 million contract to build the 9,500-square-foot concrete ...
Contractor here wins Idaho wastewater-treatment job
Sep 11, 2008; ... Williams Bros. Construction LLC, of Spokane, has been awarded a $5.9 million contract by the city of Moscow, Idaho, to build a filtration system at the city's wastewater-treatment plant. Moscow is upgrading its wastewater-treatment plant, located on the west side of the city, In reduce ...
Clarkston concern lands FernanLake job
Sep 11, 2008; ... A Clarkston, Wash., contractor has landed a $14.7 million contract to improve a 10-mile stretch of Fernan Lake Road, just east of Coeur d'Alene. M.A. DeAtley Construction Inc. will rebuild and realign five miles of the road where it winds along Fernan Lake, says Dusty Forsmann, M.A ....
County aims raceway pick for next month
Sep 11, 2008; ... Spokane County has set a tentative date of the week of Oct. 20 for naming a long-term operator for the 200-acre racing complex on the West Plains that it acquired two months ago. Earlier, the county had set a Sept 19 deadline for receiving proposals, but since then pushed the date back ...
Cost-shifting levels off
Sep 11, 2008; ... Medical costs are continuing to mount at a pace well above inflation, but the practice of "cost shifting," or shifting bigger portions of health-care premiums from employers to employees, may be leveling off, health-plan providers here say. As health-care premiums continue to rise, ...
Hecla plans stock offering worth $150 million
Sep 11, 2008; ... Hecla Mining Co., of Coeur d' Alene, says it has filed the necessary paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a public offering of 30 million shares of its common stock. Hecla says it intends to use the net proceeds from the offering, along with funds from the ...
Priest River to annex land for big project
Sep 11, 2008; ... The city of Priest River, Idaho, has agreed preliminarily to annex the property for a proposed 800-acre golf-course community to be called The Settlement. The City Council expects legal work on the annexation to be wrapped up within about a month, says Bryan Quayle, a contract land-use planner ...
Collaborative law seen as divorce court alternative
Sep 11, 2008; ... Attorneys here practicing in what they describe as an emerging legal niche called collaborative law say that new field of law saves clients time and money and results in settlements that each party is more able to maintain over time. So far, collaborative law has been used here primarily ...
Premera focuses growth in Eastern Washington operation
Sep 11, 2008; ... Premera Blue Cross, the big Mountlake Terrace, Wash-based health-care insurer, says earlier projections that its Spokane campus would emplby 630 people by next year might not come true, based on efficiencies the insurer is implementing. Still, it says, the operation here will remain the ...
Broadening expertise
Sep 11, 2008; ... Longtime Spokane law firm Randall & Danskin PS has added seven attorneys since the beginning of this year, giving it 19 lawyers in all, and says the expansion has broadened its business law expertise, its ability to provide clients with long-term strategic plans, and also its ...
Wheel Sport opens fourth bicycle store
Sep 11, 2008; ... Wheel Sport Inc., of Spokane, has opened a fourth bicycle store here, and says it has begun initial planning for a possible fifth outlet. The company's newest store, named Wheel Sport Wandermere, is located in a 1,500-square-foot space, at 12519 N. Division, in the Wandermere West retail ...
Quarry expansion planned near Wandermere Estates
Sep 11, 2008; ... Spokane Valley-based Central Pre-Mix Concrete Co. says it plans to expand a basalt quarry on a square mile of property it owns in the Wandermere area north of Spokane. The property is located east of the north end of Perry Street and north of Winger Road. It's just east of Wandermere ...
Hagadone unit adds boat storage
Sep 11, 2008; ... Coeur d'Alene-based Hagadone Hospitality Co. is expanding its boat-storage complex just north of Post Falls in a $2.6 million project. The company obtained building permits late last month to build four structures at 581 N. Beck Road, just south of Stateline Speedway, Kootenai County ...
For love of the game: Tennis of Spokane
Sep 11, 2008; ... Tennis has been a part of Dave and Karen Benish's life for more than 25 years, and they say their love for the sport hasn't diminished a bit. The couple, who recently celebrated their 48th wedding anniversary, opened a specialty tennis shop here, named Tennis of Spokane, in 1995 after ...
Spokane attorneys' office expands areas of law practice
Sep 11, 2008; ... Winston & Cashatt, Lawyers PS, a prominent Spokane law firm with deep roots in two primary legal niches - construction and personal-injury work - has been broadening its practice mix in recent years to counter ebbs and flows in those sectors. "There was a time when we were more ...
Sterling extends contracts of Gilkey, Stanley, Byrne
Sep 11, 2008; ... Sterling Financial Corp. has entered into amended employment agreements with three of its top executives in an attempt to send the market a calming message. The Spokane-based company reached the agreements last month with Harold Gilkey, its chairman, president, and CEO; Heidi Stanley, ...
Key Tronic garners 10 new clients
Sep 11, 2008; ... Key Tronic Corp., the Spokane Valley-based contract manufacturer, says it expects 10 new customers to come on line in its 2009 fiscal year, which began at the end of June, and to contribute strongly to its revenue. Jack Oehlke, Key Tronic's president and CPD, said in the company's recent ...
PFD, city didn't offer mediation to Diamond
Sep 11, 2008; ... The city of Spokane hasn't offered mediation to Diamond Parking Inc. in its condemnation suit against the company to acquire property in the block south of the INB Performing Arts Center and Convention Center, and Diamond is uninterested in mediation, says Spokane attorney Bob Dunn, who ...
Goodrich wins big cut in tax bill
Sep 11, 2008; ... Goodrich Corp., the Charlotte, N.C.-based company that makes carbon aircraft brakes at a nine-year-old plant on the West Plains, has won a big reduction in the personal-property taxes it pays on the expensive equipment at the plant. The company has stipulated to a revised finding by the ...
'Landlord' role distracts state agency
Sep 11, 2008; ... When the Washington state Department of Transportation started acquiring houses it must demolish for the North Spokane Corridor project, it didn't expect to spend so much time screwing windows and doors shut and fixing fences broken by trespassers. Melinda Ziemann, property management ...
Truck dealer developing large facility
Sep 11, 2008; ... Freedom Truck Centers Inc., of Spokane, is developing a $7 million dealership building near the Interstate 90-Medical Lake interchange and plans to consolidate its other Spokane-area operations there, says owner Ken Cook. Work on the project is just getting under way, and Cook says he'd ...
Small gyms proliferate here
Sep 11, 2008; ... Small new gyms are popping up here like coffee huts, as health club owners scramble to capture members who want to work out closer to home. Meanwhile, larger, more traditional clubs are expanding or tapping new areas of town to hold their own in an increasingly competitive fray. "We're ...
Valley's zoning plan draws fire
Sep 11, 2008; ... While the question of whether to convert Spokane Valley's busy Sprague-Appleway couplet to two-way streets has become a headline debate, a less well-known part of the city's broad rejuvenation proposal for that corridor is drawing sharp criticism from the development community. The ...
Dentist here proposes $2 million office building north of Spokane
Sep 25, 2008; ... Spokane dentist Tyler Shoemaker hopes to build a $2 million, 7,000-square-foot dental and medical building on property he owns south of the Wandermere shopping district, and wants to move his Pine View dental practice there. Shoemaker is seeking a conditional-use permit from Spokane ...
Bouten works on Tri-Cities projects worth $9.8 million
Sep 25, 2008; ... Bouten Construction Inc., of Spokane, says it's working on two medical facility expansions, at the Tri-Cities Laboratory and the Tri-Cities Cancer Center, both located in Kennewick, Wash., that together are worth a total of $9.8 million. The $7 million Tri-Cities Cancer Center project ...
Builder preps interior space for downtown Banner branch
Sep 25, 2008; ... Meridian Construction Inc., of Spokane Valley, is working on $1 million in tenant improvements for Walla Walla-based Banner Bank's new space in the Grant Building, at 806 W. Riverside, in downtown Spokane. The work, which is expected to be completed by the end of this year, includes a ...
West Plains developer aims to start third housing phase
Sep 25, 2008; ... A West Plains developer says he's preparing to start site work on a 42-lot third phase of his Silver Hill residential development in Medical Lake. The developer, Larry Pilcher, who does business as PTH LLC, of Medical Lake, says he is ready to begin developing lots for the 13-acre Silver ...
Walker Construction wins projects worth $4.6 million
Sep 25, 2008; ... Walker Construction Inc., of Spokane, has been awarded contracts worth $4.6 million to remodel Westminster Hall at Whitworth University here and to build a sports and recreation center for Bethel Church, in Richland, Wash. In the $1.9 million project at Whitworth, Walker will make ...
SFCC planning $7 million renovation of music building
Sep 25, 2008; ... Spokane Falls Community College plans to expand and renovate the music building on its campus in northwest Spokane at a cost of about $7 million. The project would consolidate all of the campus' music programs into a single building located on the south side of Elliott Drive, on the ...
Knife River submits low bid for Idaho repaving contract
Sep 25, 2008; ... The Post Falls office of Bismarck, N. D.-based Knife River Corp. has submitted an apparent low hid of about $2.7 million to do repaving work in Kootenai, Bonner, and Benewah counties, for the Idaho Transportation Department. The work will include placing about 23,500 tons of asphalt ...
Spokane County plans to expand public defender's office
Sep 25, 2008; ... Spokane County plans to renovate the Gardner Center, at 1033 W. Gardner, to expand the public defender's office located there and to move two other county operations into the building, which is located near the Spokane County Courthouse. Associated Construction Inc., of Spokane, has ...
Graham Construction lands $8.5 million Idaho project
Sep 25, 2008; ... Graham Construction & Management Inc., of Spokane, has been awarded an $8.5 million contract to rebuild two Interstate 84 overpasses between the southwest Idaho cities of Nampa and Meridian, the Idaho Transportation Department says. Reed Hollinshead, a department spokesman, says ...
Goebel completing $4 million in dam rehab work in Montana
Sep 25, 2008; ... Robert B. Goebel General Contractor Inc., of Spokane, is working on a $4 million rehabilitation project at Hauser Dam on the Missouri River in Western Montana for power supplier PPL Montana. The construction contract for the project is $2.25 million, says Steve Goebel, co-owner of R.B ....
Older women who sleep little tend to fall more, study finds
Sep 25, 2008; ... Women age 70 and older who sleep five hours or less per night may be more likely to experience falls than those who sleep more than seven to eight hours per night, says a report in the Sept. 8 issue of a journal called Archives of Internal Medicine. Additionally, the use of sleep ...
South Hill apartments to be condos
Sep 25, 2008; ... RS Properties LLC, of Spokane, is converting a South Hill apartment building into a seven-unit condominium building that's to be called L'Auberge, says Conrad Manfred, the listing agent for the project. The penthouse unit that tops the three-level structure at 701 W. 14th will be priced ...
Garco converts Martin Centre space for training center
Sep 25, 2008; ... Garco Construction Inc., of Spokane, is working on a $1 million project at Gonzaga University to convert part of the school's Martin Centre athletic facility into a training center. The contractor is transforming a 5,000-square-foot space that formerly housed a dance studio into a ...
Townhouse project planned in Indian Trail neighborhood
Sep 25, 2008; ... Greenstone Corp., of Liberty Lake, plans to develop seven townhouse structures with a total of 23 living units in two additions to its big residential development in the Indian Trail neighborhood in northwest Spokane. The townhouses are planned on two adjacent parcels on the northeast ...
Rockwood Clinic launches breast health center here
Sep 25, 2008; ... Rockwood Clinic PS has launched a new Breast Health Center, adding two breast surgeons who, along with Rockwood Clinic surgeon Renu Sinha, will evaluate and treat the Spokane-based physicians group's breast cancer patients here. At first, the surgeons will see patients at the clinics two ...
Vaccine against type of breast cancer shows promise
Sep 25, 2008; ... Researchers at Wayne State University, in Detroit, have tested a breast cancer vaccine they say completely eliminated what are called HER2-positive tumors in mice - even cancers resistant to current anti-HER2 therapy - without any toxicity. The study, reported in the Sept 15 issue of ...
Levernier wins $17 million school project near Yakima
Sep 25, 2008; ... Levernier Construction Inc., of Spokane, has started construction on a $17 million school project that will replace most of the facilities in the Union Gap School District, a small district a few miles south of Yakima, in Central Washington. Levernier will build an 81,000-square-foot ...
Key Tronic grabs big new client
Sep 25, 2008; ... Key Tronic Corp., the Spokane Valley-based contract manufacturer, says it expects to begin making products in December for Kaz Inc., a Southborough, Mass.-based maker of health, home, and garden products. Key Tronic declines to say what product or products it will be making for Kaz ...
Women miss the message on folic acid
Sep 25, 2008; ... Taking a folic acid pill a day - a simple measure to prevent severe birth defects - is under-promoted in the media, under-recommended by health-care providers, and under-used by women of childbearing age, according to a review of studies. Less than one-fourth of women who are aware of ...
Gilkey executive center to get under way at school
Sep 25, 2008; ... The University of Montana will hold a groundbreaking ceremony Oct. 10 for the Gilkey Center for Executive Education, which will be built at the school's Missoula, Mont., campus thanks in part to a $1.5 million donation from Spokane banker Harold Gilkey and his wife, Priscilla, both graduates of ...
Painting contractor doubles space with big shop building
Sep 25, 2008; ... ACI Coatings LLC plans to expand its services with a new 12,000-square-foot shop building that will be dedicated to pre-finishing woodwork and will double the Spokane Valley painting contractor's current space, says Mike Kirschbaum, the company's salesmadagec The company also plans to hire ...
More options for birth control
Sep 25, 2008; ... Women who use nonpermanent birth control to prevent unwanted pregnancies now have a. host of options from which to choose, and most don't require the daily vigilance that the traditional pill does, say women's health experts here. Alternatives to a birth control pill regimen include ...
Depression: Finding the chief causes of sharp gender bias
Sep 25, 2008; ... Depression is more common among women than men, and researchers - including here - are studying the differences between the sexes, such as hormonal fluctuations and biochemical factors, for possible answers to why that's the case. Janice M. Kusch, a Washington State University psychology ...
Dirt track operator in Elk seeks OK to reopen facility
Sep 25, 2008; ... The owner of the Double D Recreational Facility in Elk, Wash., is seeking a conditional-use permit to allow her to reopen a dirt race track and mud bogs on her property, but neighbors oppose the facility. Spokane County Hearing Examiner Mike Dempsey presided over a hearing on the ...
Inland Imaging acquires new type of breast scanner
Sep 25, 2008; ... Spokane-based Inland Imaging LLC has installed a piece of imaging equipment that it expects will improve outcomes for breast cancer patients here. The device, a positron emission mammography (PEM) scanner, is one of only two such devices in Washington state and one of only about 25 in use around ...
NAC designs $17 million Moses Lake vocation center
Sep 25, 2008; ... NAC/Architecture Inc., of Spokane, is designing a proposed 617 million vocational center for the Moses Lake School District, in Central Washington, the district says. Monte Redal, the school district's assistant superintendent of business and operations, says the center, tentatively ...
Downtown transportation plan to provide road map for city
Sep 25, 2008; ... The draft University District/Downtown Spokane Transportation Improvement Plan, commissioned by the city of Spokane and prepared by DKS Associates, of Portland, is headed toward a final document that city officials say will guide planning for transportation projects in those ...
Boise developer plans six-story office building in Cd'A
Sep 25, 2008; ... A Boise-based developer plans to construct a six-story office building at the east end of downtown Coeur d'Alene. Paul Pennington, CEO of the development company, VIQ Development of CDA LLC, says the 95,000-square-foot structure, to be called the Plaza on Sherman, will be located at the ...
Making WAVES
Sep 25, 2008; ... The city of Spokane will submit applications late this month or early next month for permits that must be issued before construction can begin on a proposed white-water park on the Spokane River, says Steve Faust, executive director of the Spokane nonprofit organization Friends of the ...
A different kind of place to sing: Ultimate Karaoke
Sep 25, 2008; ... Robert Lastimado says that at his north Spokane business, Ultimate Karaoke, he basically rents private spaces to party in. "We don't sell karaoke," says Lastimado, 36, of Spokane. "We sell a good time. Everyone is in need of having a good time." Each cozy room he rents is ...
DOT to move, update I-90 weigh station
Sep 25, 2008; ... The Washington state Department of transportation is planning a $16.3 million project to relocate the weigh station at the Washington-Idaho state line on Interstate 90 to improve traffic flow at the nearby Idaho Road interchange and to update the technology used at the site, so fewer trucks will ...
Garco lands $34 million school job
Sep 25, 2008; ... Deer Park School District has selected Garco Construction Inc, of Spokane, for a $33.7 million project to expand and modernize its high school, says district superintendent Mick Miller. The project will include expanding the high school into a 156,000-square-foot facility, by ...
Regional site selector off to good start, backers say
Sep 25, 2008; ... The Spokane Regional Site Selector, a Web site that allows visitors to identify and research quickly available commercial properties here online, had a strong first year and is proving to be a multifaceted resource, say members of the consortium that established it. The ...
Two biodiesel initiatives in works here
Sep 25, 2008; ... The giant oil company ExxonMobil Corp. has obtained a permit to assemble a $3 million biodiesel blending project in Spokane Valley, and a young company based in Arlington, Wash., separately plans to extend to Eastern Washington the distribution network for biodiesel it makes. ExxonMobil, ...
Lee & Hayes quickens its growth pace
Sep 25, 2008; ... Spokane-based law firm Lee & Hayes PLLC has seen both its staff uunrbcrs and billings jump more than 40 percent so far this year, and it expects its brisk growth to continue as it plans expansions at its offices here in Seattle, and in Austin, Texas. Next up, says CPU Shaun Cross, ...
Big bakery closes four retail stores
Sep 25, 2008; ... Wheat Montana Farms Inc., of Three Forks, Mont., says it has closed or is closing all four of its corporate-owned retail bakery and deli stores, including outlets in Spokane and Coeur d'Alene, to focus on its wholesale bread, grain, and flour operations and franchise locations. Jeremy ...
Airway Heights eyes annexation
Sep 25, 2008; ... The city of Airway Heights is considering taking a second shot at annexing a one-square-mile area along its eastern border that's part of a broader West Plains area the city of Spokane also covets. Spokane city officials say they likely would seek to block the city of Airway Heights from ...
Construction gives boost to tax rolls
Sep 25, 2008; ... Spokane County is adding $812 million in newly constructed buildings and newly platted land to its tax rolls this year, which is down from more than $1 billion in each of the previous two years, but still quite healthy, says Assessor Ralph Baker. The county put the value of new assessed ...
Affordable housing gap widens
Sep 25, 2008; ... Even as highly touted affordable-housing projects are set to be constructed here, groups that work to provide such housing are struggling to meet a growing demand for units. Projects under construction here - or soon to be - include the Walnut Corners development, The Pearl on Adams ...