Spokane News Spokane Wa

NORTH

Harbor Freight Tools, a California-based tool retailer that operates a store in Spokane Valley, says it plans to open its second Spokane store, on the North Side.

The Camarillo, Calif., company plans to open the new store in mid-May in a roughly 17,000-square-foot leased space at 6506 N. Nevada, near an Albertson's Inc. supermarket, says Perry Tirrell, the company's Kent, Wash.-based district manager. The chain is hiring about 20 employees to work at the new store, he says.

Harbor Freight Tools carries products ranging from hand tools to machinery to cleaning supplies, for both do-it-yourselfers and professionals.

The specialty discount retailer entered the Spokane market in 1998 with an outlet in the Valley. That store is located at 15312 E. Sprague and employs about 30 people, Tirrell says.

NORTH

A Spokane development company says it's spending nearly $2 million to convert a church complex north of the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena into an event center with planned capabilities to accommodate multiple business meetings and social gatherings.

The 29,000-square-foot complex, located at 1316 N. Lincoln, will include two main ballrooms, each with its own entrance, says Chris Heftel, who with his brother, Richard, are majority owners of the development company, Lincoln Center Spokane LLC, which bought the property in 2006.

Heftel says Lincoln Center Spokane is remodeling more than 26,000 square feet of floor space there and is adding about 2,700 square feet of space to the complex.

Wells Construction Inc., of Spokane, is the contractor on the project, and USKH, of Spokane, designed it.