The owner of the four-outlet, Spokane-based Thai Restaurant LLC chain plans to develop a retail center on the North Side and open a flagship restaurant there next March.

The restaurant will anchor an 11,500-square-foot retail center to be built starting soon on vacant land at 5406 N. Division, says Tom Burgess, who owns the chain with his wife, Matavee. The Burgesses also head Korbin Holdings LLC, of Spokane Valley, which recently bought the 36,000-square-foot lot at the northeast corner of Division Street and Sanson Avenue from Seattle-based Plum Creek Land Co.

The eatery will occupy more than 8,500 square feet of floor space, and will be the largest of the Thai Bamboo chain, Burgess says.

A tanning salon and spa is seeking a bank loan to open an outlet that would occupy the rest of the center, the salon owner says.

The city of Spokane lists the value of the project at $1.3 million, although Burgess says the restaurant alone will cost more than $1.5 million to construct, equip, and furnish.

The restaurant, to be called Thai Bamboo North Division, will carry the tagline "Thai, Asian, & more ...," and it will be located two blocks north of the 2,800-square-foot Thai Bamboo restaurant at 5204 N. Division, which it will replace, Burgess says. The restaurant will employ 20 people, up from 12 employees at the current Division Street restaurant, he says.

Vandervert Construction Inc., of Spokane, will be the contractor on the project, and Bernardo Wills Architects PC, also of Spokane, designed it.

The restaurant's interior design will be similar to that of the Thai Bamboo restaurant in Coeur d'Alene, which opened in 2008 with a Las Vegas-style, star-filled ceiling, although the new restaurant will have a larger dining room and a full bar, Burgess says.

It will feature a banquet room that will hold more than 50 people, and the main restaurant and the lounge will have separate outdoor dining patios, he says.

"The landscaping will be quite tropical, giving the appearance of a restaurant you might see in California or Florida," Burgess says.

In addition to Thai dishes Thai Bamboo currently offers, the restaurant's expanded menu will include some Chinese and Japanese dishes, Burgess says.

"All cuisine will continue to be authentic, non-Americanized, and freshly cooked," he says.

The lounge menu will include American pub-type foods, although lounge diners will be able to order off the regular menu, he says.

The Burgesses opened their first Thai Bamboo outlet in 2001 at 12722 E. Sprague, in Spokane Valley, and their company also operates a restaurant on the South Hill, at 2629 E. 29th.

Plum Creek Land Co., a subsidiary of Seattle-based Plum Creek Timber Co., obtained the Division Street property about a year ago through a multiparcel land exchange with the Washington state Department of Natural Resources (DNR), says Pete Thompson, of Spokane-based Stonemark Real Estate Co.

"DNR had owned it for a long time, and it was never commercially available until the exchange," says Thompson, who along with Jeff Johnson, of Spokane-based NAI Black, handled the real estate transaction between Plum Creek and Korbin Holdings.