A new company here plans to open in Spokane Valley a franchise store of DirectBuy, a membership-based company that offers discounted household goods.


The company, Brava Enterprises Inc., has leased about 15,000 square feet of floor space in the International Gateway Corporate Park, at 10102 E. Knox, and expects to open its DirectBuy of Spokane store there in early November, says Ron Cully, who owns Brava with his wife, Denise.


At DirectBuy stores, members pay an annual fee and are able to buy goods at the wholesale cost a retail store operator would pay, Cully asserts. The store will sell goodssome in stock there, but many via special orderfrom 700 manufacturers, Cully says. Products will range from carpet to outdoor dining equipment.


Were bringing a different way of doing things to Spokane, he says.


He declines to disclose the annual membership fee.


The store likely will employ 12 people upon opening, but Cully says he expects that to grow to 20 people within two years.


The Cullys, both of whom grew up in Spokane, had worked in the high-tech industry in Seattle before returning to the Inland Northwest recently to form a DirectBuy franchise operation, Cully says.


He says the planned store likely will be the only DirectBuy in the Spokane market and the only one operated by Brava.


DirectBuy is a division of Merrillville, Ind.-based UCC TotalHome Network. The company has about 90 DirectBuy stores in 27 states, the nearest being in the Seattle suburbs of Kent, Wash., and Bothell, Wash.


Mark Lucas and Tracy Lucas, both of Kiemle & Hagood Co., handled the lease of the space at the International Gateway Corporate Park.