Thoen Publishing Co., a longtime Spokane commercial printing company, plans to move its production department to Airway Heights from its main Spokane building at 1409 N. Maple.


The company, which was acquired by Davenport, Iowa-based Lee Enterprises Inc. about a year ago, also plans to hire between 30 and 35 additional employees early next year and to change its name to Lee Northwest Publishing Co., says Keith Mathis, Thoens general manager. The company currently employs 98 people here.


Thoen will move its production department, which includes two big offset presses for newspaper and magazine printing, into a 30,000-square-foot building currently under construction in the West Spokane Industrial Park, an 80-acre park being developed in southwest Airway Heights by Barrier Industries Inc., a company headed by Spokane businessman John Barrier. Mathis says Thoen Publishing has agreed to lease the building and plans to begin moving those operations there next month. It expects to be ready for operation by the end of January.


Thoens facilities on Maple include 21,000 square feet of floor space in two buildings. The production department currently occupies about 14,000 square feet of space in the main 18,000-square-foot building, and the remaining space there houses the companys sales offices. Those offices will remain at the companys headquarters on Maple. The smaller building there is used mostly for composing, and those operations will stay put.


Once the move is finished, Thoen plans to use most of the vacated space to launch a sheet-fed printing department that will print such things as envelopes and stationery.


The company is investing $3.5 million to buy a new offset printing press for its production department, as well as other equipment it will need to run its new sheet-fed press department. The new offset printing press, which will be the companys third here, should enable Thoen to increase its printing capacity by 40 percent, Mathis says.


Thoen prints newspapers and other publications for commercial printing customers, as well as its own Nickel Nik and Wheel Deals shoppers. Founded in 1955, the company had for the past decade been a unit of The Pacific Northwest Group, a specialty publications subsidiary of ABC Inc., which is a unit of The Walt Disney Co. ABC Inc. sold The Pacific Northwest Group in September 1997 for $186 million to Lee Enterprises.