Clock repair building expansion planned



Ajir Khinda, co-owner with his wife, Hardish, of the Taste of India restaurant and surrounding property on Spokane's North Side, says he plans to construct an addition onto the adjacent Spokane Clock building.

The single-story Spokane Clock building, at 3140 N. Division, has about 800 square feet of floor space, and the two-story addition that will be constructed to the east of it will include about 1,600 square feet of space on the main floor and 2,200 square feet of space upstairs, Khinda says. The total cost of the project likely will be around $300,000, he says.

Spokane Clock, which specializes in the repair and restoration of vintage, mechanical, antique, and street clocks, will lease the entire main floor of the addition, tripling its space, says Nat Williams, who owns the business with his wife, Marjorie.

Williams says the store's business has been growing, and the expansion will enable him to increase repair-station space, possibly begin offering watch repair services, and create a nicer clock display area.

Khinda says he hasn't decided on a definite use for the second floor of the addition, but is considering turning it into leasable office space or a banquet facility. He says he hopes to get city regulatory approval of the project in time to start construction of the addition in mid-February and expects the project to take about six months to complete.

Ron Joseph Architecture, of Spokane, is designing the project, and Khinda says a company he owns, A.J. Heating & Air Conditioning, will be the general contractor.

The Taste of India Restaurant occupies a 4,500-square-foot building at 3110 N. Division, just south of the Spokane Clock building.

—Kim Crompton



Geocaching kit maker moves to retail space



Cache Advance Inc., a geocaching equipment retailer here doing business as the Cache Cave, has moved to larger quarters in East Spokane from a private residence.

Owner Lisa Breitenfeldt says the company has leased an 1,800-square-foot space at 2324 E. Euclid to accommodate growth.

"We needed more space for manufacturing and shipping," she says.

Geocaching is a treasure hunt hobby pursuit through which people use a GPS device and a specific set of coordinates to find a hidden item, which is usually a container of some sort. Upon finding the container, hobbyists can search through and take or leave items. Cache Advance sells durable geocaching containers fashioned to look like rocks and also sells logbooks and other geocaching gear.

Cache Cave manufactures fake magnetic bolts with secret compartments that hold log books, geocaching containers, and satellite tracker decals for cars, among other things.

Breitenfeldt founded Cache Advance in 2005 when she began putting together geocaching kits in the basement of her home. She then began to market her kits online. Since then, the business has grown substantially and ships internationally, she says.

While a number of large retailers across the country carry geocaching gear, Breitenfeldt says she believes the Cache Cave is one of only a small number of stores in the U.S. dedicated exclusively to geocaching.

Currently, Breitenfeldt and two other people, her nieces Andrea and Lydia Smith, are employed at Cache Cave.

—Aleah Hays



Translation service moves to Tapio Center



Perciba Inc., doing business as Spokane International Translation, has moved to a 630-square-foot leased space in the Tapio Center, at 104 S. Freya, in East Spokane, from a larger space nearer downtown.

The eight-year-old company, owned by Marta Reyes and her husband, Eric Anderson, offers interpretive services in nearly 50 different languages and employs two other people in addition to the owners. It serves the legal, medical, and business community, offering to translate documents and providing interpreters, she says.

The company previously had leased a 2,800-square-foot portion of a building at the southwest corner of Third Avenue and Sherman Street that's occupied mostly by Storhaug Engineering Inc. It relocated to a smaller space because it had stopped offering language classes and no longer needed that much room, Reyes says.

"When bad economic times hit, it was a luxury people were no longer able to afford." she says.

—Aleah Hays



Auto repair business relocates on Sprague



Spokane auto repair business Pete's Independent Honda Repair has bought a former auto body repair facility at 2630 E. Sprague and has moved there from smaller quarters at 4409 E. Sprague, says owner Ken Peterson's father, Dean Peterson.

The company began the move on Oct. 24, and was open for operations at the new location on Oct. 29, says Peterson, who is not employed by his son, but traveled from Arizona to help with the move and remodeling.

The new location includes 600 square feet of office space and five repair bays, up from 400 square feet of office space and three bays at the old location, Peterson says. The new location was formerly the site of the Can-Am Body Shop.

The repair shop specializes in servicing Honda and Acura models, Peterson says. After the move, he says, the facility will be able to service other Japanese-made cars. Ken Peterson bought the business in 2005.

Dean Peterson himself handled much of the remodeling at the new site, he says, including repainting, replacing one large window, doing some rewiring, and laying a new floor.

Currently, Pete's has two auto technicians and two office workers, in addition to the owner. Dean Peterson says his son eventually would like to hire more technicians to fill unused bays at the newly acquired facility. He says the property includes an unused building that eventually will be removed to make room for more parking and facilities.

—Katie Ross