Gonzaga University will break ground this spring on a $14 million, four-story building that will add about 650 parking spaces and ground-level dining options for students and area residents.

The new building, which will replace a surface parking lot, will be bordered by Hamilton and Cincinnati streets and DeSmet and Boone avenues. When finished in January  2013, the 250,000-square-foot Gonzaga Retail and Parking Center will be the new home of GU’s campus bookstore and eventually several retail businesses.

The building will have three levels above ground, one underground.

GU school has no immediate plan to sign leases for retail space because it needs to use some of the ground level as a temporary student dining area at some point.

GU’s student dining hall is currently in the COG Building in the center of campus. That building will eventually be demolished to make way for a larger University Center.

RENDERING: ALSC Architects.

North Spokane contract pharmaceutical manufacturer Jubilant HollisterStier has won about $90 million in new projects stretching over five years, the firm’s parent company announced.

The contracts involve production of sterile injectable medicines for four companies that sell to customers in the United States and Europe, according to a release from Jubilant Life Sciences, the India company that owns Jubilant HollisterStier.

Confidential agreements prevent disclosure of the companies involved or the names of the drugs to be produced in Spokane, said Shannon Jordan, a Jubilant HollisterStier spokeswoman.

Even describing the medical conditions the drugs treat can be viewed as disclosing information to the four companies’ competitors, said Jordan.

The $90 million is an estimate based on past experience with contracts of this type, she added. The actual amount over five years may be more or less, depending on the clients’ projected needs.

Jubilant HollisterStier, which has a separate division that produces allergy-treatment drugs, employs about 600 workers, including temporary employees.

The new contracts could raise that number if the client companies ramp up production, she said.

Generally, OfficeHours really likes good data visualizations. We were heartened to see that LATimes.com runs word and concept diagrams on many search terms. So this is the relationship chart at LATimes.com for the word Spokane.

We don't really get it, however. Whatever the system is, the results are a grab-bag of uncertain connections.

We certainly hoped there would be some connection between Spokane and a number of stellar athletes, say, Jeremy Lin. But all we see are some expected links — John Stockton, being obvious. Who's Aaron Gray? (Jordan Farmar? Doesn't he play hoop, but using his name here won't generate any hits, not the way Jeremy Lin does.)

The celebrity bubble produced three names: Dylan, Bon Iver and Chuck D. I'll give a $3 Starbucks card to the first person who can establish why the The Times site links those three with “Spokane.”

BOISE — A Canadian company is spending millions of dollars exploring for gold deposits in a historic mining district near the tiny mountain town of Yellow Pine.

The exploration activity is taking place in the so-called Stibnite district, located in central Idaho about 50 miles east of McCall. The site produced nearly a million ounces of gold between the 1920s and late 1990s.  

The Lewiston Tribune reports that the Midas Gold Corp. acquired control of the district in 2009 and has filed additional mineral claims.

Company officials talked about their exploration project Monday before the House Environment, Energy and Technology Committee.  

Company Vice President Anne Labelle told lawmakers a decision has not yet been made if the new deposits are big enough to justify spending millions more on developing a mine.

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The Bank of America branch at 804 N. Monroe St. near downtown Spokane will close in May, the company announced.

The plan is to move that branch’s workers to other positions in the area, bank spokeswoman Britney Sheehan said.

The closure results from “ongoing evaluation” of how BofA's local branches serve the community’s banking needs, she added.

The bank will install a stand-alone ATM in the area of Broadway and Monroe, though Sheehan said the location hasn’t been identified yet.

BofA expects to continue reducing the number of branches over the next 10 years as customers adopt a variety of other options for managing accounts and obtaining bank services, Sheehan said.

A big deal for the crafters in the area, Hobby Lobby has announced it's opening a north Spokane location later this year.

This will be the national craft retailer's second Spokane area location.

It's taking part of the former Hastings store at 7706 N. Division St. It’s spending about $750,000 to convert the building, said Scott Nelson, Hobby Lobby’s assistant vice president of real estate.

What was the most unusual product sold in a carton made by Spokane manufacturer Sonderen Packaging? Company president Mark Sonderen reveals it in the next Front & Center profile by Michael Guilfoil, this weekend in Sunday Business. Don't miss it.

Spokane's People to People Ambassador Programs, run by Ambassadors Group, has handed out 50 full travel scholarships as part of its celebration of 50 years in business.

The publicly traded company is a for-profit provider of global student travel, themed to education and cultural exchange.

The scholarships were awarded to one student in all 50 states, and a press release said the idea was meant to “further the organization's long-term goal of building cultural awareness and global understanding.” 

The winning students received a place on their local Student Ambassador delegation traveling to destinations such as Europe, Australia, China and South Africa this summer. 

The sweepstakes were open to full-time students in grades 5 through 12 who entered an online submission form.

Winners were chosen from more than 60,000 entrants and were selected randomly.

After a long and contentious legal battle and more than three years in bankruptcy, Washington Mutual Inc. has won court approval of a reorganization plan, the Associated Press reports.

A Delaware judge who had twice rejected reorganization plans filed by Washington Mutual approved the company’s latest plan today.

As with its earlier proposals, Washington Mutual’s plan is based on WMI, JPMorgan Chase and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. settling lawsuits they filed against one another after the collapse of Seattle-based Washington Mutual Bank and the sale of its assets to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $1.9 billion. It was the largest bank failure in U.S. history.  

The plan calls for some $7 billion to be distributed to creditors and includes significant recoveries for shareholders, who often are left with nothing in bankruptcy cases.

We'd hear rumors for weeks that a number of area folks were considering buying the Bing Crosby Theater, a major part of entertainment history in downtown Spokane.

We got the word earlier on Thursday that the deal was done; local property developer Gerry Dicker put together a package and signed the deal recently. We reported that on Spokesman.com earlier.

Here's a 1951 photo that shows what the building, at the corner of Lincoln and Sprague, looked like. At the time, it was the State Theater, having gone through a few changes after starting life in 1915 as the Clemmer.

Dicker said he'll maintain the building as a theater and keep the Bing Crosby name.

Photo source: The Spokesman-Review

Looking for some insights into Spokane or North Idaho area manufacturers? Care to get close to metal casting? 

LA Aluminum Castings, in Hayden Lake, is hosting an open house this evening, starting at 6 p.m.

This is slated as a Signature Plant Tour, part of an ongoing series of events to showcase area companies, hosted by the Spokane Chapter of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and the Inland Empire Chapter of the American Society of Metals.

LA Aluminum Castings does aluminum castings; the tour will look at its tooling, casting, mold alteration, powder coating and assembly operations.

To invite colleagues to the free networking event or to sign up, go to  http://smefebruarylacasting.eventbrite.com.

Let's do a daily-double, compliments of Itron Inc.  Yesterday we mentioned its role in a smart grid test back in the Northeast and we published its year-end earnings report here.

Today it's about its Smart Meters and other efforts to make them a bit smarter.

Itron announced it's spending $100 million to acquire a Mississippi tech company, SmartSynch.

The key detail is that SmartSynch has done a solid job of using existing cellular communications into utility networks. As utilities develop reliable networks that move data back and forth, from customers to distribution centers, the need for consistent and affordable communications becomes central.

SmartSynch does that. Here's a summary from SmartSynch.com about how its system works with smart meters: “SmartSynch's SmartMeter System facilitates two-way wireless communication with each meter, making continuously updated information available to utilities and their customers. All components of the SmartMeter are encased under the glass of the meter.”

Itron has used wireless connectivity to its meters for years. We need to ask: what does SmartSynch offer that's $100 million better than the system Itron has been using?

And as the second half of today's deal: Here is a video that shows how Itron's South Carolina company makes the OpenWay meter, Itron's workhorse smart meter.

Source: this video was produced by the Discovery Channel for it's How It's Made TV series.

On Wednesday, as Itron reported mixed earnings, the Liberty Lake utility technology maker and service provider also announced it's taking part in an East Coast smart grid demonstration project.

Itron and National Grid, a northeast U.S. utitlity, announced they will be partners on a project to build and evaluate advanced smart grid systems in Massachusetts.

Here's where the geeky tech stuff shows up in the story: the two firms will field-test the multi-application capabilities of the new Itron-Cisco IPv6 based smart grid solution, including advanced metering, home area networking (HAN) and distribution automation (DA). That “stuff” is the typical and more or less standard set of tools the smart grid depends on.

OK, then, what's the key news here?  The press report says the system will use Cisco technology that allows a utility to exchange information with its residential and business customers without requiring them to all use just one proprietary set of equipment or applications.

As designed, that makes the smart grid more open-standards based, sort of like the way the Web is designed.

It's a big deal because this allows an electric utility do have a grid system across a diverse set of customers, including large industrial customers, or when dealing with a dispersed group of home customers, some of whom may be using different home metering products than others across the utility map are using.

If you really want all the other details, here's the official Itron release.

Itron and Cisco not long ago announced they had a similar deal for BC Hydro, one of Canada's largest electric utilities. Here's a summary of the project being done in British Columbia.

Spokane's Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery is among the possible winners in a contest started by national retailer Shopko.

Called “Choose the Charity,” the contest will run through March 12 and allows Facebook users to cast votes for a favorite charity. The winning charity will receive a $10,000 donation, organizers said.

Shopko's Facebook page is www.facebook.com/shopko. The winner will be announced on March 13.

In addition to Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery, other eligible charities on the Facebook page ballot are:

• The Children's Center (Salt Lake City, Utah)
• House of Hope (Green Bay, Wisc.)
• One World Community Health Centers (Omaha, Neb.)
• St. Marcus School (Milwaukee, Wisc.)

Those were selected, a Shopko press release said, based on high quality of services that they provide, the strong support that they enjoy in their communities, and  track records of proven results.

Employee health and wellness will be discussed at this year’s Future of Health Care program, Thursday morning in Spokane.

Presented by Greater Spokane Incorporated and the Journal of Business, the program runs from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. at The Lincoln Center, 1316 N. Lincoln St.

Speakers are Donna Steward, government affairs director for the Association of Washington Business; Dr. Kyle Dosch, dental consultant, Washington Dental Service; Mark Patrick, managing partner, Moloney+O’Neill Benefits; and Elisabeth Buchman, director of product development for wellness and ancillary products, Group Health Cooperative.

The discussion will focus on factors businesses should consider around employee health and wellness, such as the impact on their budgets and their ability to attract and retain new talent.

Cost is $30. Information: http://events.greaterspokane.org

Idaho employers reversed an eight-year decline in workplace health care coverage in 2011, despite the financial pressures of coming out of the worst recession since World War II.

The Idaho Department of Labor’s 2011 Fringe Benefit Survey found 66 percent of employers offered individual health insurance to full-time workers and 61 percent offered coverage to the families of those workers, the agency said today. That is 10 percentage points higher than the 2009 survey findings for worker coverage and eight points higher for family coverage.

But while the totals showed an end to the decline in workplace health care coverage, the totals fall short of 2002, when 82 percent of employers said they provided worker coverage and 62 percent family coverage.

Coverage offered to part-time workers was essentially unchanged from 2009 at 10 percent to 11 percent.

More than 900 randomly selected employers responded to the survey, conducted last August and September. The results on a statewide basis have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The survey found similar increases in the percentage of employers offering dental coverage to their workers, but there was little change in the availability to workers of pension plans or paid leave in the form of vacation, sick days or holidays.

The overall increase in the availability of health insurance in the workplace was seen among all payroll sizes from employers with fewer than 10 workers to those with more than 250.

There are some tax rules exclusive to the military, and the IRS wants to remind active duty and reserves of them so they can maximize their returns:

Moving expenses: active-duty military can deduct “reasonable, unreimbursed” moving expenses incurred because of a change of station.

Combat pay: Monthly pay for enlisted persons and warrant officers is untaxed if they served in a combat zone that month.

Travel to reserve duty: Members of the Reserves can deduct unreimbursed travel expenses for traveling more than 100 miles from home to perform reserve duties.

For a full list of military tax tips, visit http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=210896,00.html

BOISE — With the 2012 session half over, opposition from the Legislature’s conservatives has all but ended Gov. Butch Otter’s plan for using a $20.3 million federal grant for a state-run insurance exchange required by Congress’ health care overhaul.

Discussions between legislators, Otter and the insurance industry have shifted toward a state-run exchange created without federal money, but that’s sufficient to reassure U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials Idaho isn’t ignoring them, The Associated Press reports.

This approach walks a thin line between practical and political considerations: Doing enough to keep Washington, D.C., bureaucrats from imposing a federal exchange on Idaho, while letting “Obamacare”-loathing legislators tell constituents they didn’t bend to the hated federal government.

Democrats fear spurning the federal cash is tantamount to Idaho cutting off its nose to spite its face.

A week ago we ran out some numbers on the increasing number of home sales in Spokane County. The trend here is an increase number of sales, especially over the final six months of 2011 and continuing in January.

But average and median home sales continued to fall, compared with one year earlier. The reason, as stated by Rob Higgins of the Spokane Association of Realtors, is the large supply of distressed properties still being moved off the market.

So we will here offer a statewide view: Washington’s housing market in the final quarter of 2011 saw the highest seasonally-adjusted sales since the second quarter of 2010, according to the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies at the University of Washington.

Sales strength reflected bargain hunting as well as the persistently large number of distressed properties being sold in lower-priced neighborhoods, said Glenn Crellin, associate director of the Runstad Center.

Statewide the seasonally adjusted sales rate during the quarter was 91,080 homes, meaning that if the relative sales rate for the quarter were continued for a year, that number of homes would be sold. The rate is 6 percent above the prior quarter and 9.6 percent higher than the closing quarter of 2010, when tax credit programs to stimulate housing demand were ending.

Just like in Spokane, statewide sales prices continued dropping. Median home prices continued to reflect the weak economy, Crellin said. The statewide median home price was $219,700, the lowest fourth-quarter price since 2003 when the median was $205,700.

That median home sale price declined 8 percent between the end of 2010 ($238,800) and the end of 2011.

Sales, median home prices and affordability data for each of Washington’s 39 counties are available at the Runstad website.