Spalding to open North Spokane outlet

Spalding Auto Parts will open a north Spokane Pull and Save next week, moving into a new parts yard near the North Spokane Corridor project.

The storage and service yard will fill 22 acres of a 40-acre parcel in Mead purchased in 2010 by Spalding Auto Parts, the family-run accessories and new and used vehicle parts business in Spokane Valley.

Spalding operates its full-service parts shop and a nearby Pull and Save Auto Parts lot at 10414 E. Knox in Spokane Valley. The new site offers a convenient option for residents north of Spokane, said company president Russ Spalding.

It will operate seven days a week and employ 24 workers. Buying the land and constructing the yard with three buildings exceeded $8 million, Spalding said.

Instead of going to a store and asking for a replacement part, users of pull-and-saves are directed to rows of parked vehicles. Customers bring their own tools and remove parts they need, then pay a discount price for what they bring to the counter.

Spalding said interest in a north Spokane parts location increased as three smaller used-parts businesses were displaced by the north-south freeway project. Those included the former Hessel Auto Parts, which used the property at 11125 N. Market that was later sold to Spaldings for its new Pull and Save.

Former owner Jack Hessel purchased that land from the Kaiser Mead property.

The Pull and Save yard has about 500 cars, said Spalding, most of them brought to the yard by owners who get between $200 and $500 per vehicle. The yard takes any truck, SUV or car, whether running or not. Eventually it will have more than 1,200 vehicle bodies inside its fenced area.

“For our purpose it has to have the engine, the transmission and the exhaust system to be considered ‘complete,’ ” Spalding added.

The yard also has an electric-powered car crusher. Spalding said he chose electric over diesel because he was concerned about noise impacts on a mobile home park north of the yard. A diesel crusher would produce more noise than an electric system, he said.

Adding the northside business brings Spalding’s area employment to about 215, making it the largest used- and new-parts dealer in the area, Spalding said.

The company has been family-owned since the 1930s, when the first Spalding’s set up shop at Napa and Sprague. The business later moved to the Spokane Valley location in the 1940s.