Spokane Food Services Inc., which owns 14 McDonald’s restaurants and employs more than 450 people, has relocated from offices in Hillyard to a space west of downtown to make way for the North Spokane Corridor project.

The company  has about 20 employees who work in its headquarters, now is leasing 5,200 square feet of space in a building at 1821 W. Fifth, says Chris Weber, its controller.

Its space there is in a building just north of Interstate 90 and just southwest of the former AAA of Spokane property at 1717 W. Fourth that Spokane-based Avista Corp. bought last year and converted into an operations center.

The company, owned by Mark Ray, had occupied a 7,500-square-foot building at 3123 E. Bridgeport in the Hillyard area since 1974. Affiliate company Ump Enterprises Inc., also owned by Ray, sold the building and site to the state of Washington, says Weber.

“The state condemned the former property for the north-south freeway and officially took possession on July 6,” Weber says.

Along with the 14 McDonald’s restaurants that Spokane Food Services owns in the Spokane area, Ray’s family members own another eight McDonald’s restaurants in the area, Weber says. 

Last year, the state acquired property near Market Street to continue construction on the corridor and forced the demolition of a longstanding McDonald’s at 3416 N. Market that Ray owned. Construction of the new restaurant started a few months ago across the street from the previous McDonald’s, which was built in 1978.

The total estimated construction cost of the new restaurant is slightly more than $1 million, Ray says.

So far, the department has completed 5 1/2 miles of the North Spokane Corridor, which is scheduled to be 10 ½ miles long.