Lowe's Cos., the big North Carolina-based home-improvement retail chain, plans to apply as early as next week to demolish the longtime North Side Kmart and former Lyons Avenue Cinema buildings to make room for a larger Lowe's store there, the city of Spokane's building department says.

Some businesses neighboring the Kmart store, at 6606 N. Division, also say they must move this fall or winter when their leases expire to clear the way for the planned development.

Lowe's is expected to submit demolition and building permit applications on Aug. 17, says Joe Wizner, the city of Spokane's building official. Lowe's intends to erect a 171,000-square-foot structure at the Kmart site and move there from smaller quarters at 6902 N. Division, a few blocks north of there, Wizner says.

James Ivers, of Spokane, who owns the commercial property leased by Kmart and adjacent tenants, referred inquiries to Lowe's. Stacey Lentz, a Mooresville, N.C.-based spokeswoman for Lowe's, says the company declines to comment on the proposal until it completes the real estate lease.

A preliminary site plan on file with the city shows the main retail floor and attached garden center would be built on a site currently occupied by the Kmart store and five attached retail bays on the south side of it. The site plan also shows 172 parking spaces, mostly lying between Division Street and the planned Lowe's building.

"I don't see any problem with it getting through planning and zoning," Wizner says. "The use is allowed outright in the zoning." The 10-acre parcel is zoned for general-merchant use, he says.

The city hasn't calculated a value yet for the Lowe's project, Wizner says, and plans don't list a contractor for it. By comparison, Lowe's last month started construction of a $16.5 million, 141,000-square-foot store on about 13 acres of land in Kill Devil Hills, N.C., Lentz says.

Jay Patterson, manager at the North Side Kmart, says that store's lease expires in November.

Patterson says he hasn't heard from the corporate office, Illinois-based Sears Holding Corp., about the future of the North Side Kmart. The store employs about 70 people, he says.

Kmart's only other Spokane store is at 4110 E. Sprague, near the east edge of the city. The company closed a store in Spokane Valley several years ago.

The North Side Kmart building was erected in 1966 and remodeled in 1991, Spokane County assessor's records show. Including the attached retail bays, the building has 108,500 square feet of floor space.

Kristen Hoff, manager at Rae's Book Exchange, a tenant in a retail bay adjacent to the Kmart store, says the bookstore has received notice that the building will be demolished on Feb. 1. Hoff says the bookseller currently is looking for a new location and hopes to move in October.

Two doors down from the Book Exchange, the longtime Szechuan Restaurant closed in March, a sign on the window there says. A nail salon, a copy and mailing center, and a shoe store also have vacated space there.

The larger Lowe's building also will take up the land now occupied by the 20,400-square-foot former Lyons Avenue Cinemas building, at 202 E. Lyons, just east of the Kmart store, plans show. Life Center North Foursquare Church occupies that building.

"We'll be paying rent through the end of January, and then our lease is up," says Ariana Kelly, Life Center North's office administrator.

The church has bought the former Turning Point Open Bible Church property, at 8303 N. Division, and plans to move there, she says.

Harlan Douglass, a prominent Spokane real estate developer, owns the North Side parcel where the 137,400-square-foot Lowes's store currently is located. Douglass couldn't be reached for comment.

That structure, built in 1990, housed the original Eagle Hardware & Garden Center Inc. outlet. Eagle Hardware, founded by former Spokane businessman David Heerensperger, grew into a 32-store Seattle-based chain before Lowe's bought it in 1999 in a stock-for-stock merger valued at $1 billion.

In addition to its North Side store, Lowe's has two other outlets in the Spokane area, both in Spokane Valley.