Convenience Stores Capitalize On Complications Of Growth
We’ve all noticed how the pace of life in North Idaho is changing. We have to wait at stop signs. We are bothered if the car in front of us is not turning left and blocks the lane. We always choose the slowest line in the market.
So, convenience is the trend. Small wonder that several convenience stores have been built this past year and that several are planned.
The facility planned for the southwest corner of Appleway and Fourth Street, Coeur d’Alene, will offer the epitome in convenience. A mom with a sleeping, screaming or dripping baby will be able to use the drive-through for milk, bread, an espresso, pizza or whatever and go on her haggard way.
I forgot to ask if she could get a beer in the drive-through. Some states do have drive-through liquor stores.
Anyway, the place will be a A&D Mini Mart, a 2,861-square-foot building with five Conoco islands and access from both streets. The property was sold by the city of Coeur d’Alene and is between Taco Johns and Heathcliff’s.
Owners are Don and Alice Moravec, Inland Northwest natives and graduates of UI and WSU respectively. They plan to hire about 14 employees. Don currently is with a Holiday station in Spokane.
Coeur d’Alene will have two Holiday stations along Highway 95 in the next year if all goes well with the plans.
The first will be just north of Rosauers on Haycraft Avenue, and the second will be at Prairie Avenue. Each will employ eight to 20 people. They probably will feature Idaho’s first Holiday brand petroleum products.
The Haycraft store, which may be built this fall, would be 3,200 square feet with 12 pumping stations. The 5,000-square-foot Prairie store, probably to be completed next spring, would include 16 pumping stations and an automatic car wash.
Holiday, a subsidiary of Rocky Mountain Oil, is based in Minneapolis. Welch, Comer & Associates in Coeur d’Alene is helping plan the facilities.
The eastern half of Sherman Avenue in Coeur d’Alene continues to rejuvenate. The street itself will be rebuilt in the near future, offering more attractive access to newer businesses such as the Holiday Inn Express, Sundowner motel and The Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course.
Between the new motels, an old motel, the Alpine Inn, will be replaced by two professional office buildings if plans proceed as the owner wishes.
The twin, two-story, 4,500-square-foot buildings will front Sherman and be situated north-south between 21st and 22nd streets. The buildings will face each other with a pedestrian mall and landscaping between and parking to the north.
Professional office users such as lawyers and insurance companies would be probable tenants. The owner is Neil Dredge of National Associated Properties. Architect is Mark Young of Hayden. Construction may begin this fall, with a spring completion.
The Masonic Blue Lodge of Coeur d’Alene and the Order of Eastern Star will occupy the former SpokesmanReview building at 515 N. Fourth St. by this September. They may be joined by Rainbow Girls and Job’s Daughters.
The Masons are extensively remodeling the 5,000-square-foot building to include the lodge and offices in the upper floor and dining, kitchen and storage in the lower level.
The brick building originally was the Idaho Employment Office and was occupied by The Spokesman-Review for 11 years before the newspaper employees moved to their new building on Northwest Boulevard last fall.
A few years ago the Masons sold their vintage, 14,000-square-foot building on Sherman Avenue. It was an entertainment center until purchased by Crop Growers Insurance this past spring. The Coeur d’Alene Masons have been meeting in the Rathdrum lodge.
Tidbits:
A new piece of nostalgia in Coeur d’Alene’s Ironhorse Restaurant is a gas pump. One can only wonder…
It’s too bad that many people can’t take care of the road in front of their properties such as the scraps from fireworks that they probably shot off themselves. The pine cones in the bike lanes are a hazard to the twowheelers too.
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