Week in review

MONDAY

The Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena will host 15 life-size robotic dinosaurs when “Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience” arrives in July. Spokane will be the second stop in a U.S. tour.

TUESDAY

Spokane will be profiled in an upcoming U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development quarterly report, due to the city’s population and job growth.

WEDNESDAY

California-based BlueRay Technologies Inc. plans to purchase a downtown Spokane building to create a $12 million plant to manufacture and distribute Blu-ray discs, a digital medium that offers more capacity and clarity than DVDs.

• The Berg Companies have purchased 30 acres in Post Falls for a new 100,000-square-foot manufacturing facility that will construct mobile housing units which are used by the military, relief groups and others. The site could employ up to 150 workers, making up to $14 per hour.

THURSDAY

Empire Health Services needs $100 million to upgrade its computer systems and modernize Deaconess Medical Center buildings and equipment, chief executive Jeff Nelson said last week. Empire, which also operates Valley Hospital and Medical Center, is searching for an investment partner or buyer.

• Sterling Financial Corp. announced plans to purchase the 25-branch North Valley Bancorp in California in a $196.2 million deal, the latest in a series of acquisitions for the Spokane-based bank holding company.

FRIDAY

The Better Business Bureau serving the Inland Northwest has received roughly a dozen inquiries about two organizations that have posed as job recruiters online and have exposed potential applicants to identity theft and fraud.

• Coeur d’Alene is one of the top 10 places to retire young, according to Money magazine. Other top picks include Anacortes, Wash.

• Rite Aid Corp. plans to build two new stores, one on Indian Trail Road in north Spokane and the other at the intersection of Pines Road and Sprague Avenue, in Spokane Valley.