URM Stores Inc., the Spokane-based grocery distribution cooperative, is moving forward with plans to construct a multimillion-dollar building on the West Plains for Peirone Produce Co., which it owns. It's holding off for now, though, on separate plans for an expansion at URM's distribution center northeast of Spokane.

At a meeting last week, URM's board authorized the completion of engineers' drawings and a solicitation of construction bids for the West Plains project. Construction won't begin until the board gives final approval to the project, but Dean Sonnenberg, the company's president and CEO, says, "There is a 95 percent chance that's going to happen."

Peirone Produce's current facility at 524 E. Trent is on leased land, owned by Washington State University, at the far southeast corner of the Riverpoint Campus. Its land lease there doesn't expire until 2014, Sonnenberg says, but adds, "With all the activity going on down there and the signals we're getting from all the players, we think we'd be wise to move this (relocation) process forward."

Work is expected to start by early 2010 on an extension of Riverside Avenue east from Division Street through an area next to the Peirone Produce plant, and other University District-focused projects are in the works there. Peirone Produce is one of few remaining industrial users in the Riverpoint Campus area.

The envisioned new Peirone Produce building would include about 70,000 square feet of floor space and would be developed on a 10-acre site that Peirone Produce owns near the Medical Lake interchange of Interstate 90.

Sonnenberg says URM hopes to receive construction bids by early March and, if the board approves the project, "would want to get into the ground as quickly as possible." He declines to estimate the cost of the new building, other than to say it would be substantial. He says it probably would take seven to nine months to build. Lindquist Architects, of Spokane, is designing the building.

Peirone Produce, which has been operating at its current location for more than 40 years, supplies fresh fruit and vegetables to retail and institutional customers throughout the Inland Northwest and employs about 100 people. Joe Peirone founded the company here in 1946 and sold it to URM in 1986.

Sonnenberg says URM decided to hold off for now on a 150,000-square-foot expansion of its 675,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution center at 7511 N. Freya "to see what happens with the economy."

He adds, though, that the board expects to take another look at the project in six months, but also could make a decision at some intervening point if economic conditions improve sufficiently.

URM told the Journal in July that it was considering the big expansion of the facility on north Freya to handle strong growth and to meet increasing demand for frozen perishable goods.

It owns the Rosauers Supermarkets Inc. chain, Huckleberry's Natural Markets, and four Super 1 Foods stores, and serves a total of about 155 stores.