Strip Mall Will Serve Otis Orchards Area Hardware Store To Anchor Plaza On Harvard In/Around: Otis Orchards

VOICE CORRECTION: Albertson’s at Liberty Lake is not the only grocery store serving Otis Orchards residents, as was reported Thursday. Correction published Saturday, March 18, 1995, in the Valley Voice.

Workers broke ground last week on a new strip mall in Otis Orchards that will be anchored by Ace Hardware.

Harvard Plaza, a 20,000-squarefoot retail center, is being built on the northeast corner of the intersection of Harvard Road and Wellesley Avenue.

Ace Hardware, with about 11,000 square feet of space, will be located next to six smaller retail units.

Robert Guindon, a North Idaho building contractor, and James Jopson, who owns the Post Falls Ace Hardware, are developing the mall. Tomlinson Commercial Real Estate Services in Post Falls is handling the leasing.

Developers hope to attract a variety of tenants.

“There’s a need for a pharmacy, there’s a need for an attorney’s office and a yogurt shop,” said Monte Risvold, Tomlinson’s senior marketing consultant.

About 12,000 people live in the area, Risvold said.

“The only food there is Albertson’s at Liberty Lake,” he said. “Then you have to go all the way down to Barker Road, or farther west than that.

“As far as shopping, you have to go into Post Falls or Coeur d’Alene.”

The project is scheduled to be completed in July.

Harvard Plaza will be the largest commercial development in Otis Orchards in several years, Risvold said.

About 8,000 vehicles a day travel through the intersection of Harvard and Wellesley. The center will have easy access to Interstate 90.

The six lease units are between 1,200 and 1,700 square feet big.

Post Falls architect Dave Dadey drew the plans for the one-level building. Guindon is the project builder.