We expect things have to get better for Sandpoint clothing retailer Coldwater Creek. Its latest earnings showed a quarterly loss of nearly three times the amount it lost one year earlier. 

Then along comes an analysis appearing Thursday on The Motley Fool website, by analyst Anand Chokkavelu. His headline: “Is Coldwater Creek's Stock Cheap or Expensive By The Numbers?”

Readers get plenty of numbers, including a few charts by which Coldwater Creek is measured against competitors Nordstrom, Talbots and Chico's FAS.  

Considering that Mr. Chokkavelu's job is stock picking, you'd expect him to give an answer to that question. And yes, he gets around finally to deciding the stock is not a good buy right now:

He concludes: “Add in no dividend and there isn't much to love about Coldwater Creek's initial numbers.

We wonder when workers downtown at the new Apple store will install the stainless steel plate and laminated Apple logo to the front of the two-story building.

Until you see it, here are a few drawings from the city’s building permits that show the basic plan and roughly what it looks like. The front wall of the building will be about 34 feet high, to the roofline, and about 41 feet wide along the sidewalk. The doorway will be roughly 7 feet in height.

In a soon-to-be-posted second Apple retail update, we’ll post a short video of the work taking place there, at 710 W. Main in downtown Spokane.

Officially, Apple Inc. still hasn’t announced this is an Apple store.

The company doing the construction work at the former Eddie Bauer building, in downtown Spokane, recently painted a plywood sheet black to block views of renovations inside the retail office space, at 710 W. Main.

We knew for months that this is the Apple retail store going into River Park Square. Today a workman was adding a stenciled Apple logo to the black wall. We got this image. This is just a temporary wall but it’s the only “official” indication the store is going in. Sometime in the fall the store logo will be added to the facade.

We asked Apple headquarters for comment and received a note saying no announcement yet has been made. Which is Apple’s way of saying, “It doesn’t count until we say it does.”

The opening will be in the fall but an exact date isn’t set yet.

This is not exactly big or surprising news. Jos. A. Bank, a menswear retailer, will move from its current 811 W. Main address in downtown Spokane to a new location in River Park Square, opening in November.

Jos. A. Bank is taking the spot down the street previously leased by Talbots. Talbots has not said if it will open a new area store.

The Mobius Science Center will take over the ground level of 811 and 809 W. Main, opening its doors in 2012, its nonprofit board announced this week.

Both buildings — River Park Square and the West 809 Building across the street — are owned by the Cowles Co., which also owns The Spokesman-Review.

Downtown Spokane women’s clothing retailer Talbots is leaving its 706 W. Main location, effective Aug. 21. Its lease expires the end of this month, a Talbot’s employee told us today.

We’ll provide some kind of reward — non-monetary— for the reader who can convince us they really know who will move into that location.

Disclosure: We work for the Cowles Co., which also operates River Park Square, Talbot’s landlord. We asked company officials who would go in there. They were mum, as of Tuesday.

I’m guessing the company taking that spot outbid Talbots when the lease came up for renewal. Whoever that company is, they might feel it’s to their advantage to be next door to 710 W. Main, where Apple will open a retail store this fall.

Apple is taking over the location of Eddie Bauer, one door west of Talbots.