Manito Super 1 Foods Inc., a Spokane company owned by Hayden, Idaho-based grocer Ron McIntire, is seeking permits to open a Super 1 Foods supermarket in Sandpoint, says project spokesman Mike Winger.

Winger, an employee of URM Stores Inc. who helps facilitate store development for members of the Spokane-based wholesale grocery distributor, says the planned Sandpoint store would be McIntire's 11th Super 1 Foods outlet.

The 53,000-square-foot store would be built on five acres of property at the northeast corner of Larch Street and Boyer Avenue, about two blocks west of U.S. 95 in north Sandpoint. The supermarket would employ 100 to 110 people, Winger says.

He says construction ideally would start late this summer or early next fall, and it's hoped that the store would open in March or April of next year.

A contractor hasn't been sought yet for the planned project. Nystrom, Olson, Collins Inc., of Spokane, designed the store, Winger says.

Winger says McIntire's other Super 1 Foods outlets have all been successful. "Sandpoint was a natural place for him to look next," he says. "Now, it's just a matter of working with the city."

A site-plan application for the project has been submitted to the city of Sandpoint, and Winger anticipates the city will comment on the application within the next several weeks.

City Planning Director Jeremy Grimm says the zoning on the land where the store is planned already allows for a supermarket, and that the city is in the process of reviewing the site plan for the store.

If the site plan is approved, the next step would be to approve a building permit before the project can go ahead, Grimm says.

McIntire and John Young, of Spokane, are seeking to buy the land needed for the supermarket from its current owner, Renova Partners LLC, of Wellesley, Mass. Renova owns a total of 26 acres there, Winger says.

Manito Super 1 Foods owns nine Super 1 Foods outlets, and is remodeling a former Tidyman's store in Kalispell, Mont., to convert it to a Super 1 Foods.

The nine stores it's operating currently include four in Kootenai County, in Coeur d'Alene, Hayden, Post Falls, and Rathdrum, and five in Montana, in Evergreen, Whitefish, Columbia Falls, Stevensville, and Hamilton.

The target date for opening the chain's 10th store is late June or early July, Winger says.

McIntire's company name derives from the fact that he formerly operated a Super 1 Foods store here, at 830 E. 29th, in the Manito Shopping Center. He sold that store to Spokane-based Rosauers Supermarkets Inc.

Super 1 Foods supermarkets not owned by Manito Super 1 Foods Inc. are in Polson, Mont.; Ellensburg, Colville and Walla Walla, Wash.; and Spokane.