Modern Electric Close To Moving

Modern Electric Water Co. is about to get more … well, modern.

The Spokane Valley utility started almost a century ago will move into its new headquarters at 904 N. Pines Road on Monday.

The private, customer-owned utility began construction on the new campus last summer. The project includes a new administration building, storage and vehicle maintenance shop and three wells.

General Manager Mike Baker said the construction has been tantalizingly close. Modern’s employees watched the new building go up from the windows of the utility’s current headquarters just 10 feet away.

“This is kind of the last piece of the puzzle for our main campus here,” Baker said. Contractors finished the new wells and a 36,000-square-foot vehicle maintenance building last fall.

Modern Electric provides electricity and water to about 10,000 customers living mainly in the Opportunity neighborhood of the Spokane Valley. The utility has a five-person board of directors and a manager responsible for daily operations.

The new administration building includes a drive-up window for Modern Electric customers who are pressed for time. Baker said customers and developers will appreciate the nice map room where they can spread out large plans to discuss a project. Baker said they sometimes have to roll out plans on the floor of the old building because there is no room.

Also, Modern Electric’s new building has a conference room that will be available for community meetings after business hours. The room holds 80 people, or it can be separated into two smaller meeting rooms.

The utility began planning for the overhaul several years ago when it realized it had outgrown the buildings it constructed in the 1950s, Baker said. Modern is even paying for the $2.5 million project the old-fashioned way.

“This is something we’ve been planning for a long time,” Baker said. “We’re not borrowing any money. We won’t have to raise rates to pay for bonds or anything like that.”

Once utility workers move into the new headquarters, the old building will be torn down.

Wild Horse has new home

Grab your boots, the popular Wild Horse Saloon has found a new home.

The cowboy bar and restaurant has reopened at 115 S. McKinnon, said Scott Lanes, general manager and a minority owner of the business with Billy Reynolds.

Lanes said the new Wild Horse Saloon has twice as much space as the old location in the Argonne Village, which they closed last July. There are 8,000 square feet of space, including a 1,000-square-foot maple dance floor.

The bar features live music Thursday through Saturday, dance lessons Tuesday and Thursday and comedy on Monday nights. There are pool tables and electronic dart boards.

The owners also are building an outdoor beer garden and barbecue area with horseshoe pits, volleyball court and a putting green.

Lanes declined to say how much the move cost, adding they did much of the work readying the new location themselves.

So far, the new digs seems to appeal to the country and western dance club crowd.

“We’ve been slammed,” he said.

Auto parts store relocating

Napa Auto Parts is building a new store in the Spokane Valley.

Division manager Denny Justus said the new 7,000-square-foot store under construction at 15823 E. Sprague will replace the Napa store a few blocks down the street.

Contractors began work on the building March 15 and should have it finished around the first of July, Justus said.

It will have triple the inventory of the store it is replacing. Up to 14 people will work there.

The project is expected to cost about $750,000, Justus said.