Rite Aid Corp., the Camp Hill, Pa.-based pharmacy and retail store chain, plans to construct a stand-alone store in the north portion of the Franklin Park Commons shopping center where it would move an existing outlet from another part of the mall.

The company's land-use consultant is preparing to submit a binding site plan that would create a separate 3.6-acre parcel at the southeast corner of the intersection of Division Street and Central Avenue, northwest of the Burlington Coat Factory apparel outlet, says Marla French, a Spokane city planner.

The consultant, Harmsen & Associates Inc., of Monroe, Wash., indicates the structure would have 16,800 square feet of retail space, French says.

Rite Aid representatives have been working on the preliminary stages of the project off and on for about two years, she says.

"It's been a start-and-stop project," she says. "We talked a couple years prior, and they've brought it back."

Rite Aid says it's looking to operate in a new location in the retail center, but that it hasn't established a construction timeline for the project yet.

"We're certainly exploring the possibility of relocating to a freestanding location," says Eric Harkreader, a public relations specialist for Rite Aid. "We're winding through the process, but we don't have all the documents in place."

Harkreader says Rite Aid and its customers generally prefer freestanding locations in retail developments over multitenant structures.

"That allows us to provide some of the latest conveniences," he says.

For most new stores, such conveniences include drive-up pharmacy windows, which aren't always possible to provide in an outlet located in a retail bay attached to other businesses, he says.

The store at Franklin Park currently is sandwiched between a Bed Bath & Beyond store and a Ross Dress for Less outlet.

Harkreader says landlords and developers generally handle new-store projects for Rite Aid, but in the Franklin Park case, the company is working directly with the consultant. He says the workforce at the new store at least initially would be the same crew that works at the current store.

"It typically doesn't change a lot during a relocation, but it may ramp up after," depending on whether the move results in increased sales, Harkreader says.

A project of the scope envisioned by Rite Aid likely would entail an amount of soil disturbance that would require a state stormwater discharge permit, although a permit application hasn't been submitted to the Washington state Department of Ecology yet, says Jani Gilbert a spokeswoman for the department.

The move would be Rite Aid's second Spokane-area relocation of a store from a multitenant structure to a freestanding location in recent years.

Rite Aid relocated a Spokane Valley store in 2010 to a new $2.3 million, 16,000-square-foot structure at the southwest corner of the intersection of Sprague Avenue and Pines Road in Spokane Valley. That store had been located across Sprague in the Opportunity Center retail development.

Rite Aid had planned to move the Franklin Park store more than a decade ago to a location north of the Francis Avenue-Division Street intersection, but those plans didn't come to fruition.

Burlington Coat Factory Realty of Franklin Inc. bought roughly the northern half of the Franklin Park property that includes the envisioned Rite Aid site for $2.9 million in 2001, Spokane County records show. That property includes 9 acres of land and the 100,000-plus-square-foot structure that Burlington Coat Factory occupies.

The south end of the retail center has a large vacant space where an Old Country Buffet restaurant closed recently. Other Franklin Park tenants include Plato's Closet, Guitar Center, and Outback Steakhouse.