Walgreen considers new stores
Walgreen Co. is interested in building new stores in Liberty Lake and Millwood.
Full-sized drugstores are being proposed for the corner of Liberty Lake Road and Appleway Avenue and, in Millwood, at the busy intersection of Trent and Argonne.
Carol Hively, a spokeswoman for the Deerfield, Ill.-based Walgreen Co., confirmed that the company is interested in those locations but said it’s still too early in the process to talk about if and when stores would open.
The proposed stores are “part of our expansion plan for the state that we’re looking at,” Hively said.
Walgreen Co. operates about 5,475 drugstores in 47 states and Puerto Rico and has $47.4 billion in sales for fiscal 2006, the corporate Web site said. It opened 476 new stores this year and has plans to open 500 more in fiscal 2007.
Amanda Tainio, associate planner for Liberty Lake, said her department is doing an environmental review to determine if a Zip Trip station on the southeast corner of Liberty Lake and Appleway can be demolished to make way for a Walgreens.
Millwood received a building permit application last week, a city employee said. Plans detail a 13,850-square-foot drugstore that would replace a smaller Walgreens store on the northeast corner of Trent and Argonne.
The Walgreens RxPress stores offered limited retail and drive-thru prescriptions and were tested in the Spokane area a few years ago.
Walgreens operated a similar store at Sprague Avenue and Pines Road that closed to make way for a full-sized store. The bigger store was built across the street and opened two years ago.
Spokane County, which contracts with Millwood for some services, will review the application.
New wedding, party venue in Spokane Valley
A new Spokane Valley wedding and banquet hall should help ease the crunch for people searching for places to say “I do.”
Cornerstone Construction Group of Washington is building a 10,000-square-foot facility near Mission Avenue and Argonne Road, on the south side of the freeway.
Rob Gross, owner and president of Cornerstone, said the company is building the $700,000 project for Dave and Debbie Watson.
Cornerstone broke ground this week, Gross said, adding, “We hope to be done before the season starts with all the weddings.”
The Craftsman-style building will be able to be divided to serve simultaneous parties and will feature two big fireplaces and separate sound systems, Gross said. The facility also can double as a place for proms and meetings.
Head north for tacos
Sundance Plaza shopping center on North Indian Trail Road is getting a Taco Del Mar. The 1,500-square-foot restaurant, the fourth franchise to open in the area, is expected to open in December.
F & M branching out
A new F & M Bank is going up at Trent and Argonne, near Dairy Queen.
Construction is under way on the 2,420-square-foot building that will feature three drive-thru lanes, said Jeff Lane, an architect for Madsen Mitchell Evenson & Conrad, designers of the project.
The brick and masonry building is being built by Vandervert Construction. Lane expects that the bank will be completed in December.
F& M operates 14 branches in the region, including locations in Rockford, Cheney, Liberty Lake, Spokane Valley and Spokane.