Spokane discount grocer Mike Clancy, who owns two Grocery Outlet stores here, plans to move his North Side store to an anchor space in the Northgate Shopping Center, at the southeast corner of Division Street and Lincoln Road.


Clancy says he has leased a 21,000-square-foot former Albertsons supermarket space at Northgate that has been vacant for many months, and expects to move the store there early next year after property owner Harlan Douglass, of Spokane, finishes making improvements to the building.


His North Side store will relocate there from a 12,000-square-foot space at 7304 N. Division, just north of a Northwest Seed & Pet outlet. Clancy opened that store about six years ago. It currently employs 11 people, including part-time workers, and Clancy says he probably will add about six more employees after the store moves to the new, larger location four blocks farther north.


We need the space to accommodate our customers, he says of the reason for the move.


Grocery Outlet also operates a 25,000-square-foot store at 4210 E. Sprague, in East Spokane, that employs 22 people. Clancy opened that store in 1983.


Grocery Outlet sells what Clancy refers to as limited-assortment groceries, such as manufacturers excess production and products discounted due to label changes. Its inventory includes a mix of dry, frozen, and refrigerated goods, and it devotes considerable space to produce. It used to sell more salvaged goods, but Clancy says there now are very few damaged items in the stores.


The former Albertsons space that Grocery Outlet will take over at Northgate is located at the far north end of the shopping center. Grocery Outlet will be the second food store in the center. A United Grocers Cash & Carry warehouse store that caters to institutional-type customers opened about four years ago in a large space located toward the south end of the complex.


Among the other tenants at Northgate are Liquidation World; Hastings Books, Music & Video; a Michaels crafts store; Furniture Row Outlet; Schucks Auto Supply; Batteries Plus; and The Onion, Tony Romas, and Noodle Express restaurants. A number of smaller tenants also occupy a former multi-screen cinema building and strip retail building at the south end of the center.


The former Albertsons anchor space has been perhaps the centers most noticeable recent vacancy, although a prominent pad building at the northwest corner of the shopping center also has been vacant for an extended period. That building formerly was occupied by a Gateway computer store, which closed in January 2003, and before that by an Egghead Software store.