Hollywood Entertainment Corp., of Portland, Ore., and LOI Distributing Co., of Lakewood, Wash., plan to open a Hollywood Video store and a Dollar Store, respectively, at University City Shopping Center within the next three months, says Orville Barnes, the malls manager.


Barnes, who owns Barnes Consulting Co., of Spokane, says Hollywood Video plans to lease an 11,000-square-foot space, directly west of a Rosauers Supermarkets Inc.s grocery store, that Spokane-based Flahertys 99-Cent Store had leased before that chain closed all of its locations last year. The Dollar Store would occupy a leased 16,000-square-foot vacant space west of there that had been occupied partly by a Hallmark card store, he says.


A representative of Hollywood Video couldnt be reached for comment, and a representative of the Dollar Store declined to comment. Barnes says, however, that both leases have been signed.


The spaces that Hollywood Video and the Dollar Store will occupy have exterior entrances only, which will further transform U-City from an enclosed shopping mall with a central corridor to a mixed-use space for retailers, offices, and restaurants.


Once Hollywood Video and the Dollar Store have opened there, about 275,000 square feet of the 480,000-square-foot shopping center, will be occupied, Barnes says.


Still slowly, but surely, were getting things in there, he says. Its going to take some time, business conditions being what they are.


The opening of the Spokane Valley Mall in 1997 greatly diminished U-Citys role as a Valley retail center.


Since then, U-City has recruited businesses not conventionally found in shopping malls, Barnes says. ICT Group Inc., a Newtown, Pa.-based customer-call center, began occupying 48,000 square feet of the former Lamonts building of U-City almost three years ago, and Group Photographers Association, a Spokane-based photo lab for youth sports teams, moved into the remaining portion of that structure about two years ago.


Two or three years ago, we knew that we really would never be full retail on the total property again, Barnes says. Its not that we couldnt have some (retail stores) but we knew it would have to be a mixed-use project to fill it back up.