Indian Trail Area May Get Mega-Sized Shopping Center

A proposed shopping center on Indian Trail Road would include a supermarket, a large-sized retailer and up to eight smaller buildings on free-standing parking lot sites.

The Sundance Center, which has been promised by a sign for years, may at last be coming to fruition.

Developed by Dick Vandervert and Tombari Properties, the project has been submitted to the Design Review Committee, the first step in gaining city approval for the building.

Terry Tombari referred all questions to Vandervert, the managing partner. Vandervert did not return repeated phone calls.

The plans show 304,400 square feet of retail space on a 32-acre lot on the west side of Indian Trail between Lowell Road and the yet-to-be-built Barnes Road.

Included in the plans are a 57,000-square-foot supermarket, large for Spokane, and a 125,000-square-foot retail building, about the size of a Wal-Mart or Home Depot.

Also in the plans are three smaller retail spaces, ranging from 22,500 square feet to 19,000 square feet, and pad sites for a sit-down restaurant, three fast food restaurants, a bank, a gas station and a pharmacy. Most of the free-standing businesses would be designed for drive-through customers.

The developers have not revealed what retailers are interested in the spaces, although Albertson’s has been widely rumored to be the supermarket tenant.

Any new supermarket would be one too many, said Denny York, vice-president of Yoke’s Food and Drug. Yoke’s owns the only other supermarket in the Indian Trail neighborhood, near Francis.

“I think that whole neighborhood has to grow a whole lot to support two supermarkets,” York said. “What you’ll have is two low-volume stores out there.”

York pointed to the Albertson’s at Liberty Lake, which struggled initially before becoming profitable.

“Indian Trail isn’t growing nearly that fast,” he said. “To put another grocery store there just doesn’t make sense.”

Also concerned are Indian Trail residents, who worry about the impact the shopping center may have on traffic, particularly on two-lane Indian Trail.

“It seems like there are a lot of things they want to put in that little spot,” said community activist Mike Page. “There’s lots of drive-through-type business. It’s one thing to have people parking there for a few hours, but to just have people rolling through …”