The second of four phases to rehabilitate the Spokane Masonic Center has Chief Executive Officer Carlton Oakes looking up, and down. The just-completed work overhauled elevators installed in the early 1970s to give those with disabilities access to all six of the building’s floors, Oakes said.
A report that recommends Washington renew a 4-year-old program that supports movie, television and commercial production was forwarded to lawmakers Wednesday by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee. The Motion Picture Competitiveness Program, with an annual price tag of $3.5 million, has helped pay for dozens of movies, television episodes and commercials, keeping almost 800 people employed in the process, the report says.
A report that recommends Washington renew a four-year-old program that supports movie, television and commercial production was forwarded to lawmakers today by the Joint Legislative Audit & Review Committee.
A Spokane start-up pharmaceutical company has received a $1.38 million grant to develop new burn treatments for the Department of the Army. Iasis Molecular Sciences will work with Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Connecticut Health Center to formulate and test compounds based on its research, Chief Executive Officer Dave Vachon said.
A newly formed bank holding company will be the lone bidder for AmericanWest Bank. Competing bidders were required to make their interest known by 5 p.m. Monday. AmericanWest Bancorporation spokeswoman Kelly McPhee said no one stepped forward.
The Inland Northwest’s 2011 economic prospects have all the appeal of leftover green bean casserole. That’s pretty much the dish from local economists who see the near future in the near past. We seem to be digging out of the recession with a salad fork.
Christi Palmer started her Christmas shopping push at 5:30 a.m. – Thursday. Palmer said she was in line for the 6 a.m. opening at Kmart and was out of the store in 13 minutes.
More than 1,000 idled Idaho workers will lose their unemployment benefits next week unless Congress extends a federal program implemented two years ago to help sustain U.S. workers during the recession.
Checks to another 14,000 Idahoans will stop going out by May 1, said Bob Fick, spokesman for the state Department of Labor.
Employment in most North Idaho counties fell last month, with Boundary County the notable exception. The Idaho Department of Labor on Friday released a county-by-county breakdown of employment statistics, having announced earlier in the month a statewide rise in joblessness to 9.1 percent from 9 percent in September.
The unemployment rate in Spokane County slipped to 7.8 percent in October, the lowest rate in almost two years. The number of employed rose to 220,210, up from 216,960 in September, and 218,850 in October 2009.
The economic recovery will grind slowly forward next year, extending this year’s modest improvements but not breaking out strongly enough to significantly affect unemployment and household income, economists John Mitchell and Grant Forsyth said Tuesday. Speaking at a Greater Spokane Incorporated forecast breakfast, Mitchell said businesses are delaying investment decisions because of uncertainty regarding future tax policy, health care reform and environmental regulation.
The price of Sterling Financial Corp. stock fell more than 50 percent Monday, the first day of trading after the registration Friday of 4.2 billion new shares. The shares were issued to new shareholders, who in August put more than $700 million in new capital into the Spokane financial institution. The U.S. Treasury also accepted common stock in return for preferred shares obtained in December 2009, when Sterling received $303 million in federal money intended to strengthen its balance sheet.
Steve Wright was appointed interim administrator of the Bonneville Power Administration Nov. 15, 2000. You could forgive him for not saying thanks. The agency was on the threshold of its worst year ever.
Arc of Spokane will consolidate its programs for the developmentally disabled next spring into the former Inland Power and Light Co. building at 320 E. Second Ave. Executive Director Greg Falk said Walker Construction began $1.7 million in upgrades to the building last month.
Real estate values may be nearing or at the bottom, but recovery to pre-recession prices is years away, national and local industry officials said in Coeur d’Alene Wednesday. Job losses, lower household incomes, limited credit and an uncertain economic outlook continue to restrain investment in all but the best properties, said Dean Schwanke, senior vice president for the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit that focuses on land-use and real estate issues.
Cheap capital almost killed AmericanWest Bank. Documents filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court on Oct. 27 describe how money raised while the bank was growing snarled efforts to raise new funds that would block the Spokane bank’s seizure by regulators weary of its financial losses.
Tuesday’s Republican electoral victories were a shellacking for President Barack Obama, and J. Todd Taylor did not fare so well, either. The Randall Danskin attorney has agreed to speak first in a series of three Greater Spokane Incorporated workshops on the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act – Obamacare to its detractors.
