A1A Inc., a Seattle-based medical equipment distributor that formerly operated under the name Pacific Orthopaedics Inc., plans to move its Spokane operation from a small, leased space on Sprague Avenue into the former Alliance Vending Corp. building, at 601 E. Third.

A small Spokane investment group, Maduke LLC, has bought the vacant 6,200-square-foot, single-story building and half an acre of land there from Bob and Judy Nechanicky for about $390,000, and plans to spend another $200,000 or so renovating the building for A1A, says Mike Schmitz, of SDS Realty Inc., of Spokane, who represented Maduke in the transaction. That remodeling work now is under way.

A1A is a distributor for DePuy, a huge health-care conglomerate with headquarters in Raynham, Mass., and Warsaw, Ind. DePuy is part of the Johnson & Johnson family of companies and claims to be one of the largest orthopedic, spinal care, and neuroscience device providers in the world.

A1A's Spokane office has been leasing about 2,000 square feet of space at 504 E. Sprague. Rocky Lobdell, an A1A representative here, says the company decided to relocate because it needed more room and also wanted to be closer to Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center & Children's Hospital and Deaconess Medical Center, since it regularly makes equipment deliveries to the hospitals. He says the company hopes to move into the building on Third by the end of next month, and adds that probably six or seven A1A representatives will be based out of that location.

The building renovation project now under way there is the latest of several building-renovation and new office-building projects in that area east of downtown Spokane in recent years. The building has been vacant since the fall of 2008, when Empire Vending, of Spokane Valley, bought the assets of Alliance Vending, except for the real estate, from the Nechanickys and absorbed the operation.

Alliance Vending, formerly called Canteen Co., had occupied the building since the late 1940s when Bob Nechanicky's father, Richard, built it, and it was expanded in 1954. Kevin Edwards, of NAI Black, represented the Nechanickys in the sale of the property.