Secretive Deal For Sale Of Chamber Building Raises Some Eyebrows

The Spokane Club and the Spokane Area Chamber of Commerce Building are next door neighbors and very close friends.

The club wants to expand its facilities and membership.

The chamber wants to sell its existing building and move, along with the business community’s other economic development agencies, into a showy new business center a few blocks away.

Like the buildings, upper echelons of the chamber’s and the club’s management are very close, too. Indeed, many are the same people. In like vein, the president of the Spokane Club, Priscilla Gilkey, and the chairman of the task force to relocate the Spokane Chamber, Garman Lutz, are colleagues at the same firm - Empire Health Services.

So maybe it’s not surprising that such close friends would strike a deal, in which the Spokane Club would end up buying the chamber building.

The rub is, except for an inner circle, nobody knows what kind of deal is in the works. That includes the general memberships of both the chamber and the club. This has raised some eyebrows.

A handsome historical structure, the chamber building was never offered for sale, never put on the market or advertised, so there’s no telling what it really might bring. That district is becoming increasingly desirable, with new developments in the works or on the drawing boards.

Neither the Spokane Chamber nor the Spokane Club will divulge the price until the transaction is a done deal - and too late to make any difference.

But Spokane Club President Priscilla Gilkey assured me Tuesday, “We have nothing to hide. The sale is contingent on approval of the board of the chamber, which is scheduled to vote Monday. If they approve the sale, we will disclose the price.”

That’s basically what chamber President Rich Hadley told me, too.

In addition to selling the chamber’s existing home, the purchase of a new one at the southwest corner of Riverside and Post also hinges on Monday’s vote. In effect, it will consumate both transactions at the same time. That is, Hadley says, “possibly unique” in Spokane.

While declining to disclose prices, Hadley did divulge that the chamber had its existing building appraised, and the price the chamber will get from the club is “at or better than the appraisal.”

Also, in selling to the club, the chamber can use the existing building until its new home is ready. “We’re shooting for occupancy in October or November,” he said.

EWU honors Alvin J. Wolff Jr.

State Real Estate Commissioner and financial services executive Alvin J. Wolff Jr. is Eastern Washington University’s Entrepreneur of the Year.

The head of Alvin J. Wolff Inc. and Alvin J. Wolff Management will be honored by the EWU College of Business and Public Administration at its annual awards banquet May 30 in the Red Lion City Center.

Wolff, a Spokane native, began brokering investment properties at the age of 18 as the youngest real estate licensee in the state. He has built five companies into highly successful operations.

Patricia J. Shea, manager of Washington Water Power Co.’s Lewis/Clark Division gas operations, is the business school’s Distinguished Alumnus of the Year. She earned both her bachelor and master degrees in business at EWU.

Casi R. Densley, who will earn a bachelor’s in accounting this spring and is president of Beta Alpha Psi, will receive the Outstanding Student Leadership award.

Cooper ‘having a great time’ in California

“I’m having a great time,” declared Spokane’s former top payroll recruiter, Bob Cooper, by phone Tuesday from his new office in California.

“I’ve always wanted to start my own business,” said the former president of the Spokane Area Economic Development Council, “and that’s basically what I’m doing to get this new economic development agency up and running. I’m still hiring staff, designing logos, making up charts, printing up business cards, and polishing the product.”

Cooper, who resigned in March to start a completely new agency for Ventura County, an hour north of Los Angeles, says he has $3.6 million to spend in the next three years building the organization.

When he came to Spokane 10 years ago, Cooper recalls, he inherited 50 member firms and government institutions, and ended up with 300. In Ventura County, which has a population about twice the size of Spokane’s, he is starting with 15 member firms and government agencies - about equally divided between local mayors, county supervisors and area corporations. “So you can see I have plenty of opportunity to grow,” he says, “and plenty of help. This is a lot of fun.”

EDC appoints Pobst marketing director

Amy Pobst has joined the Spokane Area Economic Development Council as coordinator of marketing.

The former assistant director of admissions at Whitworth College comes from a recruiting background. A native of the Inland Northwest, she is well acquainted with the region’s economic assets.

In her new post, Pobst is responsible for implementing the council’s marketing plan, coordinating participation in targeted trade shows, working with national site-selection consultants and otherwise supporting the agency’s payroll recruiting efforts.

, DataTimes MEMO: Associate Editor Frank Bartel writes a notes column each Wednesday. If you have business items of regional interest for future columns, call 459-5467 or fax 459-5482.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review