Interior demolition work is under way at a nearly 25,000-square-foot section of the Opportunity Shopping Center in Spokane Valley, where a Value Village thrift store plans to relocate less than a mile from its current Valley location.

A spokeswoman for the Bellevue, Wash.-based thrift-store chain owner Savers Inc., which does business here as Value Village, couldn't be reached for comment. However, a city of Spokane Valley permit specialist and the manager of the Value Village store confirmed some of the details about the project.

Mike Turbak, the city permit specialist, says a tenant-improvement permit request submitted to the city lists the project as being for a Value Village outlet, to be located at 12205 E. Sprague, at the northwest corner of Pines Road and Sprague Avenue.

Tim O'Brien, who manages the Value Village store at 13113 E. Sprague, said plans call for that store to move to the Opportunity Shopping Center space once remodeling work there is completed. O'Brien declined, though, to provide other details, referring other questions to the chain's district office.

Kofmehl Inc., of Spokane, is listed in city documents as the contractor for a demolition permit already approved by the city for initial site work there. The contractor is gutting a corner space previously occupied by an Old Country Buffet. The retail center also previously had a Jo-Ann Fabrics & Crafts outlet near that now-vacant corner space, but that store moved in 2010 to retail space near the Spokane Valley Mall.

Pacific Realty Associates LP, of Portland, Ore., is listed as the building owner, Turbak says, and the permit information estimates the tenant improvement project value at $289,000.

Savers is a privately held, for-profit business that operates more than 320 shopping outlets in the U.S., Canada, and Australia that employ more than 19,000 people, its website says. In the Spokane area, it also operates a Value Village store at 708 W. Boone, north of downtown Spokane.

Savers buys the second-hand merchandise that it sells in its stores mostly from community nonprofits. The Arc of Spokane, a nonprofit at 320 E. Second that serves people with developmental disabilities, is the contractor for the Value Village outlets here. The Arc gets paid for the clothing and household goods it delivers to the thrift stores.

Since 2009, several tenants have left the Opportunity Shopping Center, including Aaron's Inc., Rite Aid, Jo-Anne Fabrics, Napa Auto Parts, and Old Country Buffet. Earlier this year, Global Fitness moved its Spokane Valley gym into 10,000 square feet of the Opportunity shopping complex in retail bays that are west of the corner space. At that time, the fitness facility disclosed plans to renovate 33,000 square feet of total space it leased there.

Global Fitness previously had been located elsewhere in the Valley, at 9233 E. Montgomery.