Companies headed by prominent Spokane developer Dick Vandervert have two big West Plains apartment projects in the works that are to include 870 living units and are to be built at a total cost of nearly $56 million.Work already is under way on

National Church Residences, a Columbus, Ohio-based nonprofit provider of housing for low-income seniors, is developing a 25-unit apartment complex for such residents in the Spokane Valley, its second such complex here.White Water Creek Inc., a a

Janek Co., a Spokane real estate company that has specialized in marketing high-end homes, has closed all of its four offices in Eastern Washington and North Idaho.Jan Ekstrom, the companys founder and president, says she closed Janeks this

Borders Books & Music is coming to Spokane.Borders Group Inc., which owns the big bookstore chain, has leased a 23,000-square-foot retail space in the Northpointe Plaza shopping center, on Spokanes North Side, for its first Spokane-area store,

Already slowed by high fuel prices and a sluggish national economy, trucking companies say surging insurance rates have slapped a jake brake on their profit margins.Some Spokane-area trucking companies report that their liability-insurance have

Skippers Inc., the Edmonds, Wash.-based quick-service seafood restaurant chain, has leased sites for two new outlets in Spokane and is negotiating to have a structure built for a third new store here.The three new Skippers Seafood & Chowder

A hardware retailer from Phoenix plans this summer to open an Ace Hardware store in a former Albertsons Inc. supermarket space on Spokanes South Hill.The retailer, The Jant Group Inc., of Phoenix, has subleased Albertsons former store in a

On Spokanes North Side, office-building owners are taking aggressive steps to fill an increasing amount of vacant spacewith some offering six months of free rent. In Liberty Lake, a spate of new office space came available as the tech sector an

U.S. Cap Systems Corp., a Spokane maker of caps for plastic jugs and enhancements for plastic-jug making systems, is on course to triple its sales this year and expects soon to be producing more than 1 billion caps annually.The company currently

Spokane developer Mick McDowell has bought the site of the former Thadeus T. Thudpuckers restaurant on downtown Spokanes east end and plans to build a five-story, 60,000-square-foot Class A office building there.The 1.25-acre site is located