The Dirt: New Yoke’s Fresh Market planned for Airway Heights

A building permit has been submitted to the city of Spokane to build a new Yoke’s Fresh Market at 11450 W. 12th Ave. in Airway Heights. It’s on land owned by the Kalispel Tribe of Indians, but the project is being inspected by Spokane building officials based on an interlocal agreement.

The site is directly north and adjacent to the Kalispel Market convenience store and Chevron gas station on U.S. Highway 2. Permit request was submitted Monday.

Initial plans call for a 50,146-square-foot building that would be separated from the Chevron by a large parking lot. Plans also call for charging stations for electrical vehicles. The site drawings show a total of 229 parking spaces.

The projected cost of the project was not listed in the permit request. The initial plans did not list a contractor.

Site drawings were prepared by Alex Sylvain, with Parametrix Engineering. Sylvain could not be reached for comment.

Hops N Drops move advances

A building permit has been requested to remodel the former Pizza Hut at 9998 N. Newport Highway into a new location for Hops N Drops restaurant.

Plans call for remodeling the 3,860-square-foot, one-story building and adding a new commercial kitchen and associated utilities.

Kevin Eggen, owner and CEO of Hops N Drops, said planners had some questions on the permit but he hopes to obtain it in time to start work in June.

Eggen said he expects the work to take about four months.

“We are super excited. The team is excited because we think that location will be busier,” he said.

Once the remodel, which is expected to cost about $570,000, is completed, Eggen will move Hops N Drops from its current location at 9265 N. Nevada St. and open it at the location on Newport Highway.

Asked when he expected that move to take place, he said: “As soon as we can.”

The purchase of the former Pizza Hut building was completed Aug. 24 and brokered by Chris Bell of NAI Black. The contractor on the project is Kilgore Construction, of Colbert, which worked with the Spokane office of Umlauf Engineers and Fusion Architecture.

UI breaks ground on research dairy

Excavation crews recently began moving dirt in Rupert, Idaho, for what will eventually become the the nation’s largest research dairy that will be operated by the University of Idaho.

Work began May 4 on what will officially be called the Idaho Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, according to a news release.

The projected $45 million project will include a 2,000-cow dairy which will be next to a 640-acre research farm.

Planners had hoped to start construction last summer. However, the delay lowered the cost of the project as prices for materials fell, said Mark McGuire, the director of the Idaho Agriculture Experiment Station.

“The lower bids mean we have sufficient funds to fully build this project,” McGuire said in the release.

The contractor is McAlvain Construction, located in Boise.

Research at the facility will help develop strategies to mitigate greenhouse-gas emissions from animals, housing areas, waste systems and in-field applications. The facility also will seek new markets for dairy waste, which may be made into valuable byproducts such as bioplastics and transportable fertilizers.

Construction of the milk barn should move quickly, but it will take more time to install state-of-the-art equipment in the milking parlor, according to the release.

Design for the second phase should be completed this summer, with the bid process occurring from September through November.

Phase two will include manure handling facilities and lagoons, maternity barn, feed area, an office building and structures to provide shade and wind protection for cows in a dry lot with several pens for research purposes.

The third phase, if funded, would add a cross-ventilated barn capable of housing 800 to 1,200 cows.

The barn would provide greater comfort to cows and would be useful in studies comparing productivity and environmental impacts of barn versus dry-lot production.

Work on the barn would likely commence in 2025, with the dairy gradually ramping up its occupancy throughout the first few years.

Cargill and Burley-based Redox Bio-Nutrients have both announced $500,000 donations toward the project this year, which brought the total industry contributions to about $9 million.

In September 2022, the Idaho Board of Land Commissioners awarded $23.25 million from the sale of UI College of Agricultural and Life Sciences endowment land in Caldwell that was no longer being used for experimental farming to support the dairy project. The state legislature approved $10 million toward the project in 2018.