Pilgrim's Natural Foods Market, a Coeur d'Alene store that features locally grown and organic products, has bought a building next door that will enable it to more than triple its size, says Joe Hamilton, who owns the business with his wife, Sarah.

The 8,000-square-foot store is located at 1316 N. Fourth, and the couple is expanding into a 17,000-square-foot space next to it that's just south of the store and that formerly housed a Liquidation World retail store, Hamilton says.

He says the company will remodel the addition, which is expected to be completed around the first of the year, and to cost more than $500,000. He declines to disclose the purchase price of the new building.

The additional space will enable the store to expand its inventory, add seating for about 30 people in its deli, and create space to hold cooking and nutrition classes, says Hamilton.

"All of our departments grew," with the addition of the new building, says Hamilton.

NorthIda Homes Inc., of Coeur d'Alene; Eastlake Electric, of Harrison, Idaho; Dockrey Mechanical Inc., of Spokane Valley; and ML Architect & Associates Inc., of Post Falls, all have worked on or are working on the project.

The store currently employs about 35 full-time and part-time employees, and plans to hire about five more people, Hamilton says.

Pilgrim's Natural Foods Market opened in 1999 with one employee in a 1,200-square-foot space across the street from its current location. The store moved one year later into a 4,000-square-foot space, and since then has expanded twice. Hamilton says the business's revenues have continually grown since opening.

Hamilton's father, Tom Hamilton, owns three Pilgrim's Nutrition vitamin supplement stores in Spokane, but they're operated separately from Pilgrim's Natural Foods Market, he says.