Fred Meyer Stores, the big Portland-based retail chain, has leased a one-acre parcel across the street from its store in east Spokane and plans to develop a $1 million gas station there.

The new fueling center will be located on vacant land at the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and Thor Street, directly east across Thor from a 140,000-square-foot store Fred Meyer opened in 2001. The property for the center is on the southern end of a block-and-a-half area east of Thor that has been cleared by its owner and is zoned for commercial development.

The fueling center will be the first new commercial structure to go up there since homes and other structures began being razed in 2007. The property is owned by Chattaroy developer Joy Hart, whose family also assembled the property where the Fred Meyer store is located. The commercial district is adjacent to the Thor-Freya interchange of Interstate 90, and near the southern terminus of the planned north-south freeway, which will extend from I-90 to U.S. 395 at about Wandermere.

Fred Meyer spokeswoman Melinda Merrill says the planned fueling center will have five gas pumps, with space to serve 10 vehicles at once. She says the chain hopes to open the center by the end of the year.

"If all permitting goes well, we expect to begin construction later this year, hopefully this summer," Merrill says.

Great Basin Engineering Inc., of Ogden, Utah, designed the center, she says, adding that a general contractor hasn't been sought for the project yet.

The facility will include a sales kiosk with about 125 square feet of floor space, and the canopy over the fueling center pumps will cover about 5,000 square feet, she says. Fred Meyer will hire two to four new employees to staff the fueling center, Merrill says.

Fred Meyer stores sell food, clothing, housewares, home and garden merchandise, and hardware items. The chain operates about 130 stores in Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and Idaho and is a division of Cincinnati-based Kroger Co. It also operates stores at 525 E. Francis and 12120 N. Division, in Spokane; at 15609 E. Sprague, in Spokane Valley; and 560 W. Kathleen, in Coeur d'Alene.