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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
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Tom Sowa

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News >  Business

Year-to-date Spokane home prices essentially unchanged over 2013

Spokane’s May home sales numbers look good at first blush: 551 homes sold, which is 25 percent more than the 440 in April. But compared to a year ago, May’s numbers are not that impressive, said Rob Higgins, chief executive of the Spokane Association of Realtors. Realtors in Spokane sold 592 homes in May 2013 – 7 percent higher than in the same month this year.
News >  Business

Ambassadors lays off 40 workers at West Plains office

Student-travel company Ambassadors Group is laying off 40 workers at its West Plains headquarters as it tries to reduce costs and streamline operations. The restructuring is the second this year for the Spokane company, following a smaller layoff of workers in February.
News >  Business

Ambassadors lays off 40 workers at West Plains office

Student-travel company Ambassadors Group is laying off 40 workers at its West Plains headquarters as it tries to reduce costs and streamline operations. The restructuring is the second this year for the Spokane company, following a smaller layoff of workers in February.
News >  Business

Vivint closing Liberty Lake call center

A Utah company that hoped to create 400 call-center jobs in Spokane County is shutting down, just shy of a year after moving into offices in Liberty Lake. Vivint Inc. said Tuesday it is closing the Liberty Lake location on June 27.
News >  Idaho

Ownership of items taken from luxury lake home contested

Two high-rollers who have fought over a sprawling lakefront property in North Idaho are back in court, trying to determine who can keep hundreds of fixtures, appliances and other items removed from that home just before a foreclosure sale last month. The latest contention erupted shortly after the 11,000-square-foot home on Mica Bay changed hands during a foreclosure proceeding on April 14-15.
News >  Business

Verizon to hold job fair in Spokane, stresses need for range of ages

Verizon Wireless plans to hire about 40 Spokane-area workers in the next few weeks and will be looking for applicants of all ages. As the boomer generation embraces mobile technology, companies such as Verizon say it’s important to find “mature” retail sales staff to connect with the older customer base.
News >  Business

McDirmid, Mikkelsen & Secrest merges with Eide Bailly

Spokane accounting firm McDirmid, Mikkelsen & Secrest PS has agreed to a merger with North Dakota-based Eide Bailly, the company announced Thursday. The local firm will change its name to Eide Bailly in June, when the deal becomes effective.
News >  Business

Spokane County’s jobless rate sinks to 6.2 percent in April

Spokane County’s jobless rate in April sank to 6.2 percent, the lowest in more than five years, reflecting warm-weather job expansion in construction, warehousing and business services. The unemployment rate in Spokane County in March was 7.8 percent and 7.7 percent in April 2013.

Spokane County unemployment falls to 6.2 percent

Spokane’s jobless rate in April sank to 6.2 percent, the lowest since November 2008, reflecting warm-weather job expansion in construction, warehousing and business services.
News >  Spokane

Providence turns to online interpreters

Providence Health, the region’s largest medical service provider, has turned to online interpreters to help non-English-speakers receive care from nurses, doctors or therapists. The Providence network recently announced that more than 30 of its facilities in the Western United States are using a video interpreting company.
News >  Business

Ride-share startups reach Spokane, and taxi companies cry foul

Two firms that use web apps to create a paid ride-share system as an alternative to taxis have begun operating in Spokane during the past three weeks. And as they have elsewhere in the country, the ride-share companies, Uber and Lyft, have drawn the ire of local cab companies.
News >  Business

Sales tax rebound aids cities, counties

Local governments are looking to consumers to keep spending their way out of what’s been a mild economic recovery. From 2008 to 2010, consumers reined in retail purchases and the result, among other things, was a steep drop in retail sales tax revenue distributed by the state to local counties and cities.
News >  Business

Pullman startup pushing interactive 3-D viewing

In late 2005 Sankar “Jay” Jayaram was hurrying home with a bag of groceries, chatting with a friend on the phone. He was planning to watch a Seahawks game when he got there. Jayaram told his friend, “I wish I could be right there at the game, or have the ability to feel like I’m there at the game.”
News >  Business

Spokane home prices up modestly in April

Spokane home sales continued pushing slowly upward, producing a 3.3 percent price bump in April, according to the Spokane Association of Realtors. That modest increase follows tepid sales numbers in February and March, said Rob Higgins, executive director of the association.
News >  Business

Numerica to serve pot growers and processors, but not retailers

Businesses that plan to grow or process marijuana in Eastern Washington can bank with a Spokane Valley credit union. But other legal pot businesses – those that sell marijuana products to customers – are not going to be eligible to open accounts at Numerica Credit Union, the only financial institution in Washington so far willing to handle the cash generated by the state’s entry into legalized marijuana.
News >  Business

Symposium puts focus on plight of middle class

Spokane business owner Ron Reed is spending about $5,000 of his own money to give area residents a two-hour sit-down next week with the Northwest’s best-known advocate for helping save the middle class. Reed, who for 25 years has operated software company PacifiCAD, is bringing to town Seattle author, entrepreneur and venture capitalist Nick Hanauer as keynote speaker at an economic symposium on Wednesday in downtown Spokane.
News >  Business

Materials exchange network forming

A coalition of sustainable industry advocates and manufacturers are forming the area’s first materials exchange network. The effort is labeled RE:Source, the Inland NW By-product Synergy Network, said Susanne Croft, the executive director of Sustainable Resources INW. The nonprofit is using a two-year state grant to move the project forward.
News >  Business

Signature Genomic Laboratories to close by mid-2014

Signature Genomic Laboratories, a pioneering Spokane-based tech company that once had 120 workers, will close by mid-2014. Tuesday’s announcement by parent company PerkinElmer means the company, formed in 2003, will shut its doors and lay off around 80 employees.
News >  Business

Inland Northwest leaders ready for annual lobbying trip to Washington, D.C.

For the 20th year in a row, Greater Spokane Incorporated will send a large delegation of government and business leaders to the nation’s capital next week to lobby for regional economic concerns. GSI President and CEO Rich Hadley will lead the group of 40, his last such trip before he retires from 20 years of heading the local chamber of commerce.
News >  Business

Northwest’s cheap power drawing bitcoin miners

When two Stanford University grads wanted to start a bitcoin company, they looked for the lowest power rates in the country. A map comparing energy rates led them to Central Washington, where hydroelectric dams churn out electricity that costs industrial customers less than 2 cents per kilowatt.
News >  Business

California group buys Spokane’s Park Tower Apartments

A California company specializing in owning and managing affordable and low-income housing has purchased the 20-story Park Tower Apartments across from the Spokane Convention Center. Built in 1973, the Park Tower has 184 units for seniors and disabled residents, most of whom are able to afford rents in the building through federal housing assistance.