The owner of Spokane-based Thai Restaurant LLC has submitted a proposal to the city of Spokane calling for a new, larger Thai Bamboo restaurant to be built at 2203 E. 29th, on the South Hill.

The predevelopment application lists the estimated construction cost at $1.5 million. Russ Page, of Russell C. Page Architects PS, of Spokane, is the project architect.

Tom Burgess, the company owner, currently operates a Thai Bamboo restaurant at 2629 E.  29th on the South Hill. Burgess declined comment about the proposed project. The proposal calls for construction of a 7,500-square-foot building on a vacant lot next door to an Applebee’s restaurant.

The proposal was submitted to city planners at the beginning of July.

 “I’d like it to happen, but right now, I just don’t feel like I’m in a comfortable position to do that,” Burgess says of commenting about the proposed project.

Burgess also declines to say what would become of the current South Hill Thai Bamboo restaurant if the city grants his request to build a bigger restaurant west of the current location and he decides to move forward with the project. 

In 2011, Burgess replaced a 2,800-square-foot Thai Bamboo at 5204 N. Division with a restaurant that now anchors an 11,500-square-foot retail center at 5406 N. Division. That restaurant is called Thai Bamboo North Division. The North Spokane restaurant occupies 8,500 square feet of floor space and is the largest of the company’s four Thai Bamboo restaurants.

Other Thai Bamboo restaurants are located at 12722 E. Sprague, in Spokane Valley, and 2010 N. Fourth, in Coeur d’Alene. Burgess opened the first Thai Bamboo restaurant in Spokane Valley in 2001.