SiteCrafting Inc., a Tacoma, Wash.-based Web-site design and Web application company, has decided to open an office in Spokane.

Brian Forth, a Gonzaga University graduate and former elementary school teacher in Western Washington who started the Web-site design company 10 years ago, says his business will occupy about 700 square feet of leased space at the Sirti Building, at 665 N. Riverpoint, for its new office. He says SiteCrafting plans to open the office in July.

"There are opportunities for companies like us to help businesses in Spokane leverage the power of the Internet," Forth says. "We'd fill a niche here pretty quickly."

SiteCrafting designs Web sites for businesses, and also builds Web-management tools for them, he says.

It employs 22 people in Tacoma and will start its Spokane office with four to six employees, Forth says. Two of those Spokane employees will move here from Tacoma, he says. He'd like to have 10 employees in Spokane within a year.

Spokane was an attractive location because it provides SiteCrafting "a jumping-off point for Western Montana and Idaho," Forth says. He says he plans to be at the Spokane office every other week for some time after it opens.

Spokane offers employees a good quality of life, says Forth, who has family here.

He says the company will offer in Spokane a practice it has maintained in Tacoma of providing free Web-site work for nonprofits, which SiteCrafting calls "gear grants," which are named after the company's logo, which resembles a gear. He plans to have each of his offices do about four of those projects a year. Nonprofits have to submit an application to be considered for them, he says.

SiteCrafting also has built content-management systems and designed Web sites at a reduced price for private elementary schools, and Forth says he plans to have his company continue to do that both in Tacoma and here. About six elementary schools will receive the help in the two cities each year, he says.

He says Greater Spokane Incorporated worked with him as he pursued opening an office here.