Southland Corp., the Dallas-based convenience-store chain, plans to develop a 7-Eleven gas station-convenience store at the northeast corner of Division Street and Second Avenue. The site formerly housed a Perkins restaurant.


Work on the project is expected to begin later this month and tentatively is set to be completed by the end of the year, says Chris Collins, a project manager at Vandervert Construction Inc., the Spokane general contractor on the project.


Collins says the former Perkins restaurant building, which Perkins vacated in early 1995 when it opened a new restaurant a few blocks away at the northeast corner of Trent and Division, will be demolished to make way for the planned 7-Eleven store. The accompanying parking lot also will be torn up and removed so that the roughly 37,000-square-foot site can be leveled and a retaining wall can be erected along the propertys northern edge.


The facility will include a 3,000-square-foot convenience store and 12 fueling stations. The fueling stations, which will be covered by a canopy structure, will be located on the west side of the property, closest to Division, and the convenience store will be located just to the east of those stations.


Eric Jensen, a Kent, Wash.-based division construction manager for Southland, says the company is negotiating an agreement to lease the site. He says it hasnt been determined whether Southland will own the outlet or will sell it to a franchisee.


Southland currently operates 10 7-Eleven stores in Spokane and three in Coeur dAlene.