Commercial Creamery Co. hopes to take advantage of a stagnant economy that it believes will cause people to stay home and snack rather than dine out. The 100-year-old Spokane-based producer of largely cheese-based dried sauces and seasonings in

Avista Corp. has agreed to buy the former Horizon Credit Union headquarters building, at 14523 E. Trent, from Horizon, and plans to move its Spokane-area call center there from its own headquarters office building at 1411 E. Mission.The Spokane

Mitchells Harvest Foods, which has operated a grocery store in Cheney for nearly 30 years, says it plans to build a grocery store in the Suncrest area. It said its purchase of land for the store included a buyout of the Suncrest Supermart, the a

Retail sales fell sharply in the city of Spokane in the first quarter of 2008, dropping 5.1 percent from the year-earlier period while slipping a less dramatic 2.6 percent in Spokane County.The citys drop in taxable retail sales, the biggest

Never mind the soft economy, for Brandon Brown and Skip Mayhew, business is bubbling, and as rising travel costs drive consumers to look to their back yards as recreational destinations, the prospects for jetted revenues grow.Brown and Mayhew a

Itron Inc., of Liberty Lake, has received three recent orders from utilities in New York state, Detroit, and Portland, Ore., the latter of which likely will be worth $20 million to $25 million in business.In the biggest of the orders, Itron it

Specialty foods giant Whole Foods Market Inc., after coming so close to opening a store here that it had signed a letter of intent to buy the Empire Ford dealership building downtown, apparently has decided to shelve for now its plans to enter the

Washington Federal Savings, a regional bank with Pacific Northwest roots that go back 91 years, has bought land in Liberty Lake, where it plans to erect its first Eastern Washington branch, the bank says.The Seattle-based bank has bought a site

Following a long and contentious battle with residents on their plans for a group of retail developments on the South Hill, developers say they expect to move forward soon with those envisioned projects.Home Depot Inc. hopes to start next on of

Wagstaff Inc., the 62-year-old Spokane Valley maker of equipment for the aluminum-casting industry, plans to construct a large office-building addition to accommodate strong recent growth, says Paul May, its CEO.Due partly to surging sales, is