A few retail tenant changes are in the works at the Spokane Valley Mall, including a new Vans shoe store, a Victoria's Secret shop expansion, and the apparent first Spokane-area location for Swedish-based clothing company H&M.

Mall and H&M company representatives didn't return calls immediately, but H&M advertised on its website earlier this week that it's hiring for two key positions, a department manager and a visual merchandiser, at Spokane Valley Mall.

Also, at least five smaller, contiguous stores on the mall's lower level have relocated to other mall spaces, and a temporary frontage wall has been installed in front of those spaces, which are located cater-cornered from the Sears store.

H&M's employment listing doesn't indicate when it plans to open at the Valley mall.

Hennes & Mauritz AB, operating as H&M, employs over 94,000 people at about 2,500 stores in the U.S., Europe, Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East, with apparel for men, women, youth, and children, its website says. With high-profile designer collaborations, H&M is the world's No. 2 clothing retailer by sales behind Spain-based Inditex, and H&M reported that sales in the quarter ending May 31 rose to $4.52 billion, a Wall Street Journal story says.

In the lower level of Spokane Valley Mall near Sears, the new Vans store is scheduled to open Friday, June 22, says Billy Jones, a Vans store manager.

Jones says 20 to 25 full- and part-time employees have been hired for the Valley store opening. He referred further questions about project value and the size of the store's space to corporate headquarters, and a spokesman couldn't be reached for comment.

The only other Spokane-area Vans outlet is located in NorthTown Mall. More than 300 Vans stores in the U.S. and globally carry action sports footwear, apparel, and accessories. Vans is a division of Greensboro, N.C.-based VF Corp. Jones says the Vans store here also has served wholesale accounts for several other retailers, including Kohl's, Fred Meyer, Macy's, and Nordstrom Inc.

Also on the lower level, the Victoria's Secret outlet is expanding into an adjacent space to feature its Pink brand of apparel, with a tentative opening date of July 12, says Stacie North, a category manager for the store. Until remodeling work is finished, Victoria's Secret is temporarily located in a space on the upper level.

"We're building a really big store, expanding it," North says. "They took over the space next to the store as well, so it's going to be a lot bigger than before. It's going to be a much larger Pink store."

Pink merchandise includes brightly-colored sportswear, loungewear, and underwear, including hoodies, T-shirts, pants, shorts, and baseball caps targeted toward college-aged women. They are sold within Victoria Secret's outlets, and in some higher-volume stores, the brand is featured in an adjacent retail space.

Pink, Victoria's Secret, and Bath & Body Works are under Limited Brands Inc., a Columbus, Ohio-based retailer.

Limited Brands says on its website that it operates 2,613 specialty stores in the U.S. Employees at the Spokane Valley outlet referred further questions about the estimated cost of the expansion project and total number of employees to the retailer's corporate office, which didn't respond to a request for information.

Spokane Valley Mall, a 740,000-square-foot shopping center located at 14700 E. Indiana, also has tenants in a separate commercial strip across a parking lot along the western edge of the mall. The commercial strip houses outlets of Old Navy, Nordstrom Rack, and T.J. Maxx. A Wholesale Sports Outdoor Outfitters outlet that also has been operating there was scheduled to close this week to prepare for a July move to NorthTown Mall.

General Growth Properties Inc. is the Chicago-based owner of the Spokane Valley Mall, NorthTown Mall, and the Silver Lake Mall in Coeur d'Alene.