The Spokane Intercollegiate Research and Technology Institute (SIRTI) will embark on a new life starting July 1, when it becomes a separate state agency.The move is expected to boost the institutes profile, allow it to garner more money from a

Telect Inc., the big Liberty Lake maker of telecommunications equipment, is taking what company officials believe are the first steps in building a new foreign subsidiary that would produce and sell products for the companys growing customer in a

Spokanes four major entertainment and meeting facilities had their best year ever financially in 1997, bolstered by record combined revenue of more than $2.35 million, according to a year-end report released recently.The Opera House, Center, a

Spokane-based WTB Financial Corp. posted record net income of $15.6 million for 1997, up 6.9 percent from 1996.The financial services holding company, the parent of Washington Trust Bank, of Spokane, also reported solid gains in assets, loans, a

Rite Aid Corp., the Camp Hill, Pa.-based drug-store chain, is having a store constructed at the northwest corner of Sprague Avenue and Sullivan Road in the Spokane Valley and plans to open one of its drug stores there in August.The planned store

Ponderay Newsprint Co., which owns the big paper mill at Usk, Wash., about 60 miles north of Spokane, could have a new managing partner by this summer.Avenor Inc., the Montreal-based current managing partner and 40 percent owner of the plant, a

A modest boost in the local sales-tax rate could raise enough money to pay the local share of a $300 million light-rail system here, but Spokane-area voters would have to approve the tax hike, an official here says.The U.S. House of included of

The Spokane-area office market is strengthening, due to continuing business expansions here and the arrival of some new companies, analysts say.Recently released results of an office market survey conducted earlier this year by Kiemle & Hagood a

Employment in the Spokane area rose 4 percent in 1997the biggest year-to-year gain in jobs in the 1990s, according to the latest full-year figures from the state of Washington.Last year, the number of people employed in the Spokane area rose

Layrite Products Co., the longtime Spokane block maker that shut its doors last year, allegedly is in default on four major loans, and property on Trent Avenue where its plant operated for decades is slated to be sold in a trustees sale to the on