First National Financial Group Inc., of Spokane, has opened three new branches in the last two months, giving it five, and plans to open a sixth office, in Vancouver, Wash., within the next two weeks.Glen Hays, a director and senior shareholder

The number of foreclosures in Spokane County climbed sharply in 1998 for the third straight year, putting the county within mortgage-tossing distance of highs not seen here since the late 1980s, according to county auditors figures.A total of

Two major golf course developments, both of which will be semiprivate and designed to appeal to upscale golfers, are planned in Kootenai County.One course, called The Links Golf Course, is being built north of Post Falls on the Rathdrum Prairie

Wandermere Investments LLC, an investment company here of which Spokane developer Dick Vandervert is the managing member, has bought a Liberty Lake retail center for $4.8 million from Boise-based Cantlon Properties Inc. The Spokane investment to

To free up more room for its accelerating production lines, Cheney-based electronics manufacturer XN Technologies Inc. is more than doubling its floor space this year through construction of a $2.8 million office building at its Cheney site.Work

The owners of Empire Dance Shop, who write out their monthly balance sheets by hand on pieces of ledger paper, maintain a computer database that tracks which pointe shoes each of the shops customer has tried over the years and what they thought a

Of the Journal of BusinessAvista Corp. had been working to open a back-office operation in a Spokane Valley office park planned here by technology guru Bernard Daines when the project was affected adversely by growth-management issues, Avista to

Hollister-Stier Laboratories LLC, which completed its spinoff last month from Bayer Corp., will be much more aggressive than Bayer was here in both introducing new allergy and asthma-related products and in seeking contract-manufacturing roles for

Storm-water management, once given little local-government attention compared with sanitary-sewer and drinking-water issues, has turned into a $120 million-plus concern in Spokane County, and officials soon may be looking to businesses here to a of