Skippers Inc., the Edmonds, Wash.-based quick-service seafood restaurant chain, has leased sites for two new outlets in Spokane and is negotiating to have a structure built for a third new store here.


The three new Skippers Seafood & Chowder House restaurants will give the chain a total of five locations in the Spokane-Coeur dAlene area and help to reestablish its presence here, which had been whittled down to two restaurants from as many as seven in the mid-1990s.


Brad Barnett, president and CEO of Skippers Inc., says the company has leased the vacant restaurant buildings at 3029 E. 29th, in the Lincoln Heights shopping district, and 3320 N. Monroe, on Spokanes North Side. He declines for now to disclose the site of the restaurant that Skippers expects to build, but says its along North Division Street.


The 100-seat, 2,500-square-foot Lincoln Heights location is undergoing minor remodeling work and is scheduled to open later this month, Barnett says. That restaurant will employ about 25 people.


The South Hill building most recently housed a Carls Jr. restaurant, and is a few blocks east of a building where Skippers previously had operated a restaurant that it closed just over a year ago.


At the Monroe Street location, Skippers leasedfor a second timean 80-seat, 2,000-square-foot building and plans to update that building. The company had operated an eatery in that building until about a year ago, when it shuttered that location.


Barnett says the company plans to open again there in late June. That outlet will employ about 20 people.


Skippers hasnt signed an agreement yet for its planned new store along Division, but Barnett says he hopes to have that agreement in place within 30 days and to open an outlet this fall.


Skippers also operates a restaurant in the Spokane Valley and in Coeur dAlene.