TJX Cos., a multinational retail corporation, has applied to the city of Spokane to remodel the largest vacant space at NorthTown Mall for a new Marshalls store.

The company also has posted online job notices for managers at the planned store, which is to occupy the former Nordstrom Rack location.

Robert Thompson, TJX Cos.' new store development and construction manager for the West Coast, says the company hopes to open at NorthTown in early November, in time for the Christmas shopping season.

Thompson says he expects the store will employ 75 to 100 people initially.

An active job posting on TJX Cos.'s online job board says the company is seeking a manager and an assistant manager for a new Marshalls store in Spokane. The posting says applicants must be experienced in managing retail stores with annual sales of more than $5 million and that the people hired to those positions will be expected to hire and train more than 40 full- and part-time employees.

The building-permit application, which was under plan review by the city earlier this week, describes the planned remodel project as a nonstructural "full build-out"of the 26,400-square-foot space formerly occupied by Nordstrom Rack.

The remodel will include new sales areas, check stands, automatic doors, restrooms, offices, and stock and processing areas, plans show. Work will include framing with metal studs, installing drywall, and hanging a suspended ceiling and light fixtures.

Gluck Building Co., of Calabasas, Calif., will be the contractor on the $700,000 project, and Scott Gibson Architect Inc., of Chico, Calif., designed it.

Marshalls, which boasts the tagline "Never pay full price for fabulous," specializes in reduced-price name-brand apparel and home fashions.

The big anchor spot, which is highly visible from Division Street on the west side of the mall and just north of the Regal Cinemas Inc. NorthTown 12 theaters, has been empty since Nordstrom Rack vacated the space last fall.

Nordstrom Rack, which carries discounted apparel, accessories, and shoes from Nordstrom stores and the Seattle-based company's online store, reopened in the Spokane Valley Plaza, just west of the Spokane Valley Mall, where it occupies 30,000 square feet of space neighboring other apparel retailers T.J. Maxx and Old Navy.

Farmington, Mass.-based TJX Cos. also owns T.J. Maxx, another reduced-price fashion retail chain, and HomeGoods, a home accessories and furniture chain, in the U.S., as well as four retail apparel and home-accessory chains in Canada and Europe.

TJX Cos.' corporate website says its subsidiaries' annual revenues total more than $20 billion, and they have a combined total of 150,000 employees.

TJX Cos. acquired Marshalls in 1993. Although it and T.J. Maxx are sometimes marketed together, Marshalls is differentiated by its extensive shoe department, a larger line of men's apparel, and a juniors department, called the CUBE, its website says.

Marshalls' website says the retailer operates 875 stores in 42 states and Puerto Rico and has opened more than 50 stores nationwide this year. Marshalls currently operates 10 stores in the Puget Sound area. Outside of Western Washington, the next closest Marshalls store to Spokane is in Meridian, Idaho.

TJX operates three T.J. Maxx stores, however, in the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene area, including the Spokane Valley Plaza store. The other T.J. Maxx outlets are located at 9660 N. Newport Highway, in the Northpointe Plaza on Spokane's North Side, and at U.S. 95 and Wilbur Road in Hayden.