Three additional restaurants and seven new retailers have agreed to open outlets at the Spokane Valley Mall within the next seven months, and another four potential tenants are negotiating to sign leases, says Wendy LePiane, marketing director for the mall.


Gap/Gapkids, an apparel store; Millers Outpost, a family-clothing outlet; Journeys, a casual shoe store; Vanity, an apparel shop for junior women; Wet Seal, a womens apparel store; and Wicks n Sticks, a candle business, all have agreed to lease space within the mall, LePiane says. Two restaurants, Old Country Buffet and Uno Pizzeria, also will occupy space in the mall, and Stuart Andersons Black Angus Steakhouse and Pier 1 Imports Inc. both have decided to open free-standing outlets on commercial pad sites in the malls parking lot, she says.


LePiane, a spokeswoman for the malls owner, Salt Lake City-based JP Realty Inc., declines to name the four additional retailers that she says are negotiating to sign leases for spaces at the mall. She says that with the addition of the 10 new tenants that already have signed leases, the malls occupancy will be at 85 percent.


Stuart Andersons Black Angus, a Los Angeles-based steakhouse chain, long operated a restaurant in a downtown Spokane location that later was occupied by Saltys, but closed its doors at that location in 1988. The steakhouse chain now plans to build an about 6,600-square-foot restaurant on a pad site at the Spokane Valley Mall. LePiane says that the exact location of the new restaurant hasnt been decided yet.


Pier 1 Imports Inc., of Fort Worth, Texas, plans to build an about 10,000-square-foot free-standing store on another pad site at the mall. LePiane says she doesnt know which pad site the store will select. Pier 1 operates two stores here.


Meanwhile, both Old Country Buffet, which already operates buffet outlets here at 12209 E. Sprague and 5504 N. Division, and Uno Pizzeria, a Chicago-style deli and pizzeria that will be new to the Spokane area, plan to open sit-down restaurants within the mall. LePiane says that Old Country Buffet likely will occupy more than 8,000 square feet of floor space across from the Bon Marche store, near the malls east entrance. Uno Pizzeria is expected to move into more than 5,000 square feet of space near the malls video arcade, called Tilt.


Inside the mall, work has begun on a 3,500-square-foot store for Irvine, Calif.-based Wet Seal that is expected to open next month. The scheduled opening of the other stores hasnt been determined yet, LePiane says.


She says that the Gap/Gapkids store will use about 8,600 square feet of floor space. Millers Outpost is expected to occupy more than 5,000 square feet of space on the second floor of the mall. Vanity is expected to need about 3,800 square feet of floor space; Houston-based Wicks n Sticks likely will occupy about 1,400 square feet of space; and Nashville, Tenn.-based Journeys will use about 1,500 square feet of space, LePiane says.


The 750,000-square-foot mall, which opened last summer, is anchored by The Bon Marche, Sears Roebuck & Co., J.C. Penney Co., and an Act III Theaters 12-screen cinema.