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Tag: econdev

Inland Northwest economic forecast to be presented in Spokane Valley

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Robin Ohlgren
Wednesday, 21 September 2022 / Published in News + Updates

September 20, 2022 (FAIRFIELD, Wash.)—Inland Northwest Partners (INP) is accepting registrations for the annual regional economic forecast review to be held in Spokane Valley in October. Headlining the event is John W. Mitchell, principal at M&H Economic Consultants, with his keynote presentation titled “Shocks, Mistakes and Replays”. Mitchell shares the stage with economic and community development specialists who will provide timely information on our national and regional economy. The INP Economic Forecast Fall Meeting is Thursday, October 13 from 8:30 a.m.-2:00 p.m. at CenterPlace Event Center, 2426 N. Discovery Place in Spokane Valley. Cost is $40 for INP members and $60 for non-members. Register at www.inwp.org/events.

Spokane International Airport is the headline sponsor for the fall meeting, which also features Sam Wolkenhauer, Labor Economist with the Idaho Department of Labor, to discuss demographic shifts and transitions occurring in our labor markets; and Grant Forsyth, Senior Economist with Avista Corporation, who will provide regional perspectives on inflation and the impacts on both households and businesses.

“The Inland Northwest Partners continues to provide important and relevant community economic development topics to our Inland Northwest business leaders, elected officials, chambers and economic development professionals,” says Paul Kimmell, Chairman of INP Board of Directors.

“Rob Curley, Executive Editor of the Spokesman Review, is a great addition to our meeting lineup,” adds Kimmell. “Rob’s presentation on the Virtuous Circle — why moments of goodness often create more and more goodness — truly demonstrate Rob’s commitment to positive community building. That’s never a message that gets old.”

INP members meet quarterly to share common economic challenges and solutions within the eastern Washington and northern Idaho region. Topics can include technology, financing community initiatives, forging regional partnerships, civic capacity-building, business expansion and retention strategies, and talent attraction. INP often partners with local chambers or state organizations for value-added training.

For more information about INP meetings or becoming a member, visit inwp.org or email [email protected].

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Inland Northwest Partners (INP) is a non-profit organization focused on enhancing the long-term vitality of a two-state region through its core offering of educational meetings, programs, and seminars. More than 300 business and community leaders from eastern Washington and northern Idaho are members. INP is also part of a regional collaborative known as the Inland Northwest Economic Alliance (INEA), a consortium of fourteen economic development agencies. To learn more, visit inwp.org.

 

Story Contact:

KayDee Gilkey, Executive Director, Inland Northwest Partners

P| (509) 990-6105  E| [email protected]

community developmentdepartment of commerceecondevgreater spokaneinland northwestinlandnwwashington

Jump starting communities for success is topic for upcoming economic development meeting

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Robin Ohlgren
Monday, 13 June 2022 / Published in News + Updates

June 13, 2022 (FAIRFIELD, Wash.)—Inland Northwest Partners (INP) is accepting registrations for a June meeting in Hayden Lake, Idaho. Rural economic development specialist, Jimi Coplen, will share her strategies for creating a spark in small communities.  “Jump Starting Your Community for Success”, is Tuesday, June 28 from 8:30 a.m.-2:00 p.m. at Hayden Lake Country Club. Cost is $40 for INP members and $60 for non-members. Seating is limited. Register at www.inwp.org/events.

Jimi Coplen has been an economic and community development practitioner for 20 years, serving in small rural communities in Texas. During the pandemic, she launched an online platform, The Rural Spark, as an educational, and networking platform for other rural economic developers.

“My hope is to empower a new generation to lead their communities and lead strong”, says Coplen. “The pandemic created a shift. People are coming back to rural communities. They are buying homes, starting businesses, retiring, putting kids into our schools. Now more than ever, we need strong economic development professionals and programs.”

INP members meet quarterly to share common economic challenges and solutions within the eastern Washington and northern Idaho region. Topics can include technology, financing community initiatives, forging regional partnerships, civic capacity-building, business expansion and retention strategies, and talent attraction. INP often partners with local chambers or state organizations for value-added training.

For more information about INP meetings or becoming a member, visit inwp.org or email [email protected]

************************

 

Inland Northwest Partners (INP) is a non-profit organization focused on enhancing the long-term vitality of a two-state region through its core offering of educational meetings, programs, and seminars. More than 300 business and community leaders from eastern Washington and northern Idaho are members. INP is also part of a regional collaborative known as the Inland Northwest Economic Alliance (INEA), a consortium of fourteen economic development agencies. To learn more, visit inwp.org.

 

 

Story Contact:

KayDee Gilkey, Executive Director, Inland Northwest Partners

P| (509) 990-6105  E| [email protected]

community developmentecondevgreater spokaneinland northwestinlandnwinprethinking ruralspokane metrowashington

Entrepreneurial ecosystem in greater Spokane traverses complicated terrain

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Robin Ohlgren
Thursday, 21 April 2022 / Published in News + Updates

This article first appeared in the Journal of Business on April 21, 20211. by Virginia Thomas

While funding opportunities have slowed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Spokane’s startup community remains active, bolstered by employees located throughout the U.S. and events that bring attention to new companies, some market observers here say.

According to information from proprietary market data software subscription platform PitchBook, more than $51.6 million went to startups in the Spokane area in 2021. That’s less than half the $107.6 million in funding startups here received in 2020.

Of those funds committed in 2021, nearly half—$25.3 million—was venture funding.

Steve Rector, chief investment officer at Spokane-based Cowles Ventures LLC, says that while there’s no shortage of startups to fund, cash flow to investments has slowed as investors have been more hesitant to part with their money while the pandemic persisted through a second year.

“People are preserving cash in some of the uncertainty,” Rector says. “I was a little more protective during the last 18 to 24 months, just until we got a better handle on where things were going.”

Cowles Ventures is the venture-capital arm of Cowles Co., which owns the Journal of Business through its subsidiary, Northwest Business Press Inc.

Tom Simpson, managing member of angel fund Kick-Start, president of the Spokane Angel Alliance, and president and CEO of Ignite Northwest, says that data from Pitchbook should be taken with a grain of salt.

“PitchBook data is not complete because you don’t have everything disclosed,” Simpson says. “I would be careful about drawing a meaningful conclusion and saying the Spokane region suddenly is less interesting because of a decline.”

According to PitchBook data, startups that received the greatest amount of funds in 2021 include:

•Coeur d’Alene-based additive manufacturer Continuous Composites Inc., which received $18 million in venture funding in June.

•Coeur d’Alene-based cyber security company Gravwell Inc., which raised about $7 million total from two seed funding rounds in 2021.

•Spokane Valley-based real estate startup Doorsey Inc., which raised $4.1 million in seed funding in November.

Simpson says it’s important to note the number of new startups receiving investments versus the number of follow-on investments.

In 2021, four new startups – Vega Cloud Inc., Doorsey Inc., Treasury4 Inc., and Ruumr Inc. – received funding. No new startups received funding in 2020, according to PitchBook data.

Rector says Cowles Ventures invested in two new companies in 2021—Spokane-based fintech software startup Treasury4 Inc. and Vega Cloud, which is a Liberty Lake-based software maker.

So far in 2022, investors have infused more than $7.7 million into local startups, according to PitchBook. Most of that came from a $7 million venture funding round to Spokane-based spice maker Spiceology Inc. from San Francisco-based venture capital firm Jackson Square Ventures and other undisclosed investors.

Rector says investments in Spokane-area startups are likely to recover somewhat in 2022.

“Overall, in the markets and the venture space, we’ll probably see some upticks in ’22, just because we are getting out of some of the uncertainties that were clouding us in 2020 and 2021,” Rector says.

Simpson says future successful companies could be born from local startup events, which also maintain the momentum of the community.

Sparks Weekend, to be hosted this year by Ignite and LimeLyte Technology Group Inc. from April 29 to May 1 at the Catalyst Building, at 601 E. Riverside, provides new startups with resources to launch, Simpson says.

“It’s a three-day event where people with ideas for brand-new businesses present their ideas on Friday evening,” Simpson says.

About 40 presenters will be winnowed down to 10 finalists, who will be paired with mentors to work on creating a minimum viable product, conducting market research, and refining their busines model. On Sunday, competitors will present their final plans to a panel of judges. One winner will receive $50,000 in investment capital.

“That’s something that’s been very fruitful in the ecosystem here in Spokane,” Simpson says. “For example, Spiceology was the winner of a predecessor to Sparks Weekend, which was called Startup Spokane. Kaspien, several years ago, was the product of the same business plan competition.”

Spokane Valley-based e-commerce company Kaspien Holdings Inc. is an example of a company that has benefitted from some effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Simpson says. It has increased employee numbers by hiring people to work remotely. Other startups in the Spokane area also are likely to grow this way, Simpson says.

“The broader acceptance of remote work has really helped Spokane,” Simpson says. “In the past, sometimes Spokane was at a disadvantage for recruiting. Now, we can recruit people to work for emerging Spokane companies, though the workers may live elsewhere. It’s benefitting the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Spokane in two ways—more talent coming in, and the ability to attract a broader base of talent, though the workers might not live in Spokane.”

Ryan Arnold, director of regional entrepreneurial strategy at North Idaho College and co-manager of the Northwest Entrepreneur Competition, says entrepreneurial events are a good way for startups to find funding and other resources.

At the Northwest Entrepreneur Competition, hosted virtually on April 13 by North Idaho College and Spokane’s University District, more than 50 student teams competed for a total of about $44,000 in awards.

In addition to funding and feedback from judges, such events provide networking opportunities. Arnold says many entrepreneurs have a small network or none at all.

“Events like these oftentimes are a sort of clearinghouse for that, where they’re not only competing, but they’re meeting new people, they’re meeting their own peers that are going through the same issues, and they’re building their own entrepreneurial network,” Arnold says.

The Northwest Entrepreneur Competition has been hosted by North Idaho College annually for about 15 years, Arnold says. In that time, the entrepreneurial ecosystem here has flourished, he says.

“What we’ve found over time is that Spokane as a region has gotten more complex as far as the ecosystem goes,” he says. “We’re doing a good job of cooperating across state lines. The ecosystem is starting to work together a lot better, more cooperatively.”

Even before the Northwest Entrepreneur Competition came along, the startup community here was connecting higher education institutions with startup investment opportunities.

“You see this in the building growth of Spokane’s University District, for instance—the physical form of these spaces and places next to the downtown core,” Arnold says. “We were trying to attract talent and resources. But now, that talent and resource is here. Those buildings and spaces are here. With that comes the opportunity to just keep building and growing.”

Arnold says startups in the health sciences, aerospace, and advanced manufacturing sectors in particular have seen significant growth here.

Rector says Spokane startups have been receiving more attention from investors based outside of the Inland Northwest.

“We’re attracting some good, strong attention nationally with some of the companies that were started here,” Rector says. “I’ve got a couple of different venture groups in the Bay Area and a couple in the Seattle area that are much more inquisitive as to what we’re doing over here.”

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2021 Manufacturing Economic Impact Report for the State of Idaho

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Robin Ohlgren
Tuesday, 15 March 2022 / Published in News + Updates

The Idaho Manufacturing Alliance (IMA) has released their 2021 Manufacturing Economic Impact Report for the State of Idaho.

This is a report of the economic footprint of Idaho’s manufacturing sector for the year 2020. The sponsor is the Idaho Manufacturing Alliance and authored by the Vandal Impact Center. The student authors are Jacob Spence, Christopher Giddings, Josh Gehring, and Keegan Opdahl. The faculty advisor is Steven Peterson, who has conducted over 150 studies on nearly every Idaho industry in his career1. The study was completed in November 2021.

IMA partners with the University of Idaho and Alturas to fulfill a long-time organizational goal of formally highlighting how important manufacturing is to the Idaho economy. IMA’s three main activities are to connect, support and promote manufacturing.

Download full report here.

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Engineering Idaho: David Evans & Associates consults on major traffic changes

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Robin Ohlgren
Monday, 30 August 2021 / Published in News + Updates

This article first appeared in the Spokane Business Journal on July 15th, 2021, (Updated 7/16/2021 with new project cost and timeline on the Interstate 90-state Route 41 project.) by Kevin Blocker.

 

Established in Portland, Oregon in 1976, the transportation civil engineering consulting company David Evans & Associates Inc. has secured a solid presence in the Inland Northwest.

Especially in Idaho.

Despite the fact the biggest share of the company’s Inland Northwest employees are based in Spokane, it tends to secure more work in Idaho than in Eastern Washington.

“Idaho has a more robust program for consultants,” says Russell Leahy, the company’s transportation market leader for the Inland Northwest.

“(Washington state Department of Transportation) does a lot of work internally, so they don’t give much work to consultants,” Leahy says. The situation is similar for both the cities of Spokane and Spokane Valley, he adds.

“Idaho typically runs lean, and they rely more on consultants to help deliver their work,” Leahy says. “We have a breadth of technical skills across the area and across the company that we can draw from. If we do a project here, we can pull people in from all over the company. We have the horsepower to deliver on tight time frames.”

The company has 750 employees in Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, California, Colorado, Nevada, Texas, Mississippi, South Carolina, and New York.

Roughly 35 employees are based in in the company’s Spokane office with another 20 in the Coeur d’Alene office.

Due to COVID-19, however, a significant part of the company’s Inland Northwest workforce is scattered across the region and working remotely, he says.

“We’ve got people in Clarkston (Washington), Lewiston (Idaho) … one in Riggins, Idaho,” he says.

More recently, a significant portion of David Evans & Associates’ Inland Northwest staff has increasingly turned its attention to a planned two-year, $57.2 million Idaho Transportation Department project for which the company is the consultant and design company.

Though he declines to provide specific revenue figures, Leahy says company revenues and projects have been on the rise in the last two to three years.

The project, for which construction will begin in 2023, involves the complete realignment of the Interstate 90-state Route 41 interchange in Post Falls.

“That is a major interchange upgrade to take a lot of the current goofiness out it,” Leahy says in reference to the area’s often inconsistent traffic flow. “But it’s going to be a disruption to everyone driving on the interstate because there’s going to be a lot of work on it.”

When finished, a portion of state Route 41 just off the freeway will be relocated to the west of its current location.

“By moving it away from the hillside, that’s going to allow us to move the westbound off ramp to prevent cars from backing up on the freeway the way they often do now,” he says. “It will give more time and room for people to slow down coming off the freeway.”

“The ultimate goal is to increase the operational efficiency of the interchange,” Leahy says. “It’s a really exciting project for us.”

David Evans & Associates also is the consulting and design company for ITD’s soon-to-be completed realignment of the state Route 53-U.S. 95 interchange just north of Coeur d’Alene and eight miles north of I-90.

In Spokane

But David Evans & Associates also secures a substantial amount of work in the Spokane area, Leahy says.

The civil engineering company currently is operating as the consultant to WSDOT for the current realignment project involving North Barker Road at East Trent Avenue in Spokane Valley, he says.

The project will place a roundabout at Barker and Trent while moving vehicle traffic below a BNSF Railway Co. line bridge to slow traffic while separating motorists from the rail line, he says.

“The separation of vehicular traffic from the railroad tracks is the big facet of that project,” says Leahy, of WSDOT’s desire to reduce keep motorists and trains away from each other as much as possible.

Leahy, a 15-year employee at the company, says most employees at the company have long-standing tenure.

“That’s one of our strengths; we’re a very stable company,” he says.

Despite that, Leahy says it has been a challenge to add more staff to the company’s Inland Northwest operations.

“Following the financial crisis of 2008, 2009, for two or three years, no one was hiring civil engineers,” he says. “A lot of people went to other fields and careers. Even still, it’s really hard to find good engineers right now.”

The growth in the Boise area, however, did result in the hiring of an additional 20 civil engineers to the company to handle work on burgeoning projects there, Leahy says.

“We’re hiring anybody we can right now, if they have skills and are good,” he says.

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Recordings of recent INP webinars now online

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Robin Ohlgren
Wednesday, 03 March 2021 / Published in News + Updates

 

Now available in our Speaker Presentation Library, our recent webinars have been recorded:

INP 2021 Winter Webinar: Retail & Restaurant Recovery

Heather Thomson – It’s a Tall Order
Josh Wade -Hospitality Survival Strategies

Webinar Recording—> Click here!

*************

INP 2020 Winter Webinar:The Importance of Digital Inclusion

Monica Babine: Setting the Stage
Russ Elliott: State Programs & Resources (WA)
Eric Forsch: State Programs & Resources (ID)
Mike Kennedy: A Provider’s Perspective
Debra Hansen: Broadband Action Teams: How to Engage Your Community Utilizing the BAT Model

Broadband Action Team (BAT) Information Sheets

Webinar Recording—>Click here!

************

INP 2020 Fall Webinar: 2020 Regional Economic Outlook

Sam Wolkenhauer: Inland Northwest Labor Market Trends (ID)
Ajsa Suljik: Inland Northwest Labor Market Trends (WA)
John Mitchell: 2020 Regional Economic Outlook-COVID, Zooming & Resilience

Webinar Recording—> Click here!

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New residents are just one factor in rise in Spokane home values

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Robin Ohlgren
Monday, 01 February 2021 / Published in News + Updates

This article first appeared in the Journal of Business on January 14, 2021. By Patrick Jones, executive director of the Institute for Public Policy & Economic Analysis at Eastern Washington University.

Supply side said to have greater effect as listings fall short of local demand

Ever thought it’s those out-of-towners who have driven up housing prices here recently? You probably aren’t alone.

After all, the median house price for resale has climbed from approximately $284,000 to $330,000 over the past four quarters.

That $46,000 represents a 16% bump, a steep one for buyers. Spokane’s median price, while still considerably lower than the state value, cruised upward at a slightly higher pace than Washington’s median, which rose 14% over the past 12 months. (Supporting data is available on Eastern Washington University’s Spokane Trends website.)

Prices reflect many forces, both demand and supply. The key drivers of housing demand are income, financing, and population. Incomes here have moved upward in the past few years, but at a rate not too far from historical rates. For sure, mortgage rates have plummeted, leading some homeowners to consider trading up and some renters to consider buying.

Population growth, too, has surged over the past four years, relative to the past two decades. And like most western U.S. cities, Spokane’s population has expanded largely due to migration.

Local families continue to keep OB-GYNs busy, but in the larger scheme of things, it is migration that moves the population needle. For example, from April 1, 2019, to April 1, 2020, the number of heads in Spokane County rose by 7,350. Of those, 85% can be attributable to net migration.

Net migration accounts for the difference between those who move in and those who move out. Over the past five years, the number of county residents here due to net migration has been slightly more than 25,000. That’s a large jump from the prior five years.

Has it been just me who has seen more out-of-state license plates on Division Street or Interstate 90 since the pandemic struck? Observations from behind the wheel are not optimal research techniques. Thankfully, we can look at a public data series: driver’s license surrenders tracked by the Washington state Department of Licensing.

The surprise result for the first 11 months of the year: out-of-state license surrenders have dropped. From January through November the Department of Licensing reports about 7,700 new residents from outside of our state exchanging driver’s licenses. That total is down from 9,160 and 10,830 for the first eleven months of 2019 and 2018, respectively. So much for casual empiricism.

In retrospect, that shouldn’t be too surprising. The early months of the pandemic’s outbreak put a hard stop to mobility in this country.

A comparison of license surrenders in the second quarter of this year with the second quarter of 2019 is startling: 104 this year versus 2,360 last year.

Undoubtedly, the low numbers from this year are due to the closure of state offices for a good part of the quarter. Yet the third quarter, when obstacles to reregistering ostensibly were removed, didn’t compensate for the prior quarter. Licensing data show a gain of little more than 200.

In sum, the continued discovery by those from out-of-state, so strong in the recent years, shifted gears in 2020.

Yet, inflows might still be strong from movers within the state. The U.S. Census tracks annual flows from county to county in the U.S, compiled over five-year intervals. The most recent period is 2014-2018. It clearly shows the flow of Washingtonians to our county to be considerable.

Over that interval, the ratio of new residents to Spokane from Washingtonians to those outside of the state was just slightly below even. That is, a few more new residents have recently come from outside the state than from the other 38 counties in Washington.

It might be the case that the pandemic has changed that relationship, making it relatively easier for residents of Evergreen State counties to move here than those from hundreds of miles away.

In fact, among the top 10 U.S. counties contributing to in-migration here over the 2014-2018, period, seven were in Washington. Ranked by size of their flows, these were: Snohomish, King, Benton, Grant, Pierce, Stevens, and Lincoln counties.

Of the two out-of-state counties, one, not surprisingly, is neighboring Kootenai County, and the other, perhaps surprisingly, is Maricopa, Arizona. Though not a county, Asia as a whole rounded out the top 10.

Most of us have heard anecdotes about neighbors or friends of friends who have moved here from the central Puget Sound area. Many of the accounts describe the new residents as remote workers. That arrangement may well be part of the new normal for our economy and in particular for tech workers.

If so, these new neighbors symbolize a hope held by many in the economic development community: Someday Spokane will benefit from an arbitrage of labor from high-cost to lower-cost urban centers.

It is this observer’s hunch that current movement from other Washington counties has mirrored the decline of out-of-state new residents in 2020.

As a consequence, fingers can’t be pointed at Seattleites for the dramatic run-up in housing costs. Until we have data for 2020, we simply won’t know.

Attempts to explain housing prices solely to increased demand, however, miss half of the equation, perhaps the greater half. The supply side must be considered. Here, as has been widely noted, the offering of Spokane homes has been lowest on recent record.

The Washington State Real Estate Research Center, source for some of the housing data on Spokane Trends, tracks the number of listings by quarter in the county. For Q3 2020, the most recent quarter for which data are available, the count stood at 558. Compare that with 1,158 listings in Q3 2019, or 2,562 listings in Q3 2015.

Population has grown, incomes have grown, financing has gotten much more favorable, yet supply has diminished. Clearly this is a textbook case for rising prices.

The supply of homes (listings) rests on two sources: the number of local households selling their homes and the number of new homes coming onto the market.  Spokane Trends doesn’t track the latter, but does follow residential building permits, typically viewed as a leading indicator. (See indicator 2.3.3.) The graph clearly shows a peak in 2016, followed by a decline of 500 permits into 2019.

The reasons behind the decline are numerous.

They include: difficulty in securing land, the cost of developing lots, a tight labor pool in the building trades, and the rising costs of construction, especially lumber. Some of these forces might see some relief relatively soon, but others will take longer to resolve.

That is, unless hundreds of current Spokanites decided to sell and move to a different place. That doesn’t seem to be in the offing now. The pandemic has kept local residents place-bound, too. Once our community reaches a safe threshold of vaccinations, I don’t expect a big outflow. Continued low supply, growing popularity from outside the region, continued low financing costs, and no significant rise in departures imply rising home prices for the foreseeable future.

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URM grocery purchases old Northwest Bedding facilities on West Plains, adds clients on coast

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Robin Ohlgren
Monday, 21 December 2020 / Published in News + Updates

This article first appeared in the Journal of Business on October 22nd, 2020. . Written by Natasha Nellis

Spokane-based wholesale cooperative URM Stores Inc. has purchased the former Northwest Bedding complex on the West Plains to accommodate ongoing growth, as the organization expands west of the Cascade Mountains.

Located at 6102 S. Hayford Road, just west of the Amazon Fulfillment Center and north of West Plains Building Supply, the newly acquired property includes two warehouses with nearly 140,000 square feet of floor space—one with 117,900 square feet of space and the other with 16,000 square feet.

The structures will be used as additional staging and storage space, says Mike Winger, vice president of store development.

“It gives us some flexibility to better utilize the main URM facility,” he says.

A commercial change-of-use application on file with Spokane County shows tenant improvements in both structures are valued at about $12.4 million. URM purchased the 13.8-acre property for $3.7 million in September, according to Spokane County Assessor’s Office records.

The recently acquired Hayford Road structures previously operated as a boat manufacturer, Sun Runner, from 1977 to 1991 before transitioning into a Northwest Bedding manufacturing facility, says James Black III, Realtor with NAI Black who handled the transaction. The property has been vacant for roughly two years.

The expansion comes on the heels of a double-digit growth in revenues during the most recent fiscal year.

In its 2020 fiscal year ended July 31, the company experienced double-digit sales growth and closed out the year at a consolidated annual revenue of $1.3 billion, up 13% compared with 2019 revenue, Winger says.

Much of that growth is attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic, as more people cook at home and drive up sales at grocery stores, which in turn drives up sales at the wholesale cooperative, he says.

“The way the virus has impacted the restaurant trade has really changed people’s eating habits, and a lot of our retailers have experienced significant sales growth because people are now going to the grocery store and buying a lot of that center-store grocery product,” he contends.

Winger says it’s likely the new facilities will operate with a limited staff, as the facility is intended to be used as a temporary dry food storage facility. However, he adds, the significant growth and demand the company has seen this year has led to over 80 new hires at the URM headquarters, and the company is looking to add 30 to 35 additional employees before year’s end.

URM currently has over 670 employees.

In addition to eliminating periodic expenses related to off-site storage during the holiday seasons, the new facilities give URM expanded storage capabilities that Winger says will allow the company to better serve its growing client base in the large Pacific Northwest metropolitan areas.

“With the growth of our company, we’ve been pushing our trade area farther west,” says Winger. “Now, we service grocers over in the Seattle and Portland area.”

He adds that as more retailers are added to the company’s roster, the demand for specialty products could increase. The new facility will help to accommodate those products that the company headquarters, at 7511 N. Freya, currently doesn’t now.

Further, he says the grocery industry is continuously evolving, with new products being added every day, organic products growing in popularity and diversity, and ethnic foods growing in demand.

The new space will give the company the flexibility to accommodate those needs in the future as the company’s retailer base diversifies, he contends.

During the holiday season, the distributor often rents additional space to store the candy and other holiday treats the member companies only stock seasonally, Winger explains, so having the additional space will cut that expense.

The West Plains facilities currently are undergoing tenant improvements to ensure that the buildings are up to date with code requirements, he says. The buildings also aren’t connected to city water or sewer systems, and instead operate on a private well, so the company is inspecting them to ensure the life safety systems are operational, he adds.

Winger says improvements are slated to be completed by spring 2021.

“We have, for some time, been looking to see how we could expand our existing warehouse facility. We’re somewhat limited because we have the railroad property to the west of us and we have streets on either side,” he says of the company’s headquarters on Freya Avenue.

Much of the planned work is cosmetic, adds Winger. Additionally, the structure’s roof will be replaced, portions of the steel panel wall will be repaired, and the loading docks will need to be repaired or replaced to be properly sized for the company’s trucks, he says.

URM’s flagship distribution center on Freya Street is 680,000 square feet. According to the company’s website, its distribution center receives over 400 inbound truckloads weekly and ships over 450 outbound truckloads a week.

Its headquarters were established in Spokane in 1926. Since, the company has steadily expanded its space, with its last addition occurring in 2014 when the company added 77,000 square feet to its perishable groceries space.

URM services members in Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Oregon. Its offerings include dry groceries, frozen food, ice cream, deli foods, dairy products, fresh meat, general merchandise, and health and beauty aids.

The 99-year-old cooperative is a member-owned food distributor to grocers that include Center Place Market, Family Foods, Harvest Foods, Huckleberry’s Natural Market, Rosauers Supermarkets, Super 1 Foods, The Markets LLC, Town & Country Markets Inc., Yoke’s Fresh Market, and Northwest Grocers.

The company also provides supplies to two URM Cash & Carry stores.

Next year URM Stores will celebrate its 100th year, says Winger.

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Inland Northwest Economic Developments, SUMMER 2020

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Robin Ohlgren
Tuesday, 01 September 2020 / Published in News + Updates

The following are projects, initiatives and economic developments are making news in eastern Washington and northern Idaho.

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SPOKANE, Wash. — Washington Department of Commerce has provided a $100,000 grant to support expansion and workforce training needs of SkyOne Aerospace. Founded in the Spokane Valley in 2015 with three employees, SkyOne Aerospace, specializes in customer-oriented repair and overhaul of instruments, avionics, electronics, mechanical units and hydraulic units of military aerospace aftermarket. SkyOne will purchase new equipment to meet expansion needs and hire additional skilled technicians with military aerospace experience. The company will retain 18 jobs and create 45 new jobs over the course of the next three years. Presently, 40 percent of SkyOne’s workforce are veterans, and the company is committed to hiring more, mostly from Fairchild Airforce Base. Read more on the SkyOne website.

COEUR d’ALENE, Idaho — Idaho Central Credit Union, ranked 2nd by Forbes’ 2020 Customer Satisfaction Survey, opened a branch in Coeur d’Alene at 1327 W. Appleway Avenue. This is Idaho Central’s 38th location in Idaho. The 8,600-square-foot branch has a drive-through with three lanes, an ATM and a video booth in the corner for members to access our VideoChat services. See more about ICCU’s Appleway Branch here.

PULLMAN, Wash. — With the recent successful completion of the $155M runway realignment project at the Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport (PUW), work recently began on the design and construction of a new terminal. In early August, the PUW Airport Board created a Terminal Advisory Committee to help gather community feedback and help shape the design of the $35 – 50M project. Committee members include community and university officials, key business leaders and other interest. Contact the PUW for more information.

MOSCOW, Idaho — Work continues on identifying and developing additional water supplies for the Palouse Region. Under the direction of the Palouse Basin Aquifer Committee (PBAC), an organization which includes the cities of Pullman, WA, and Moscow, ID, Latah and Whitman counties, University of Idaho, and Washington State University, a $150,000 contract was recently awarded to Alta Science and Engineering, Inc., of Moscow, ID. The study will focus on refinement of potential water supply alternatives as well as interim measure to help identify and develop additional water supplies within the Palouse Basin. Contact PBAC for more information.

SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. — The Spokesman-Review has moved its printing operation to a new facility in Spokane Valley. It is now being printed on a press that was built in the early 2000s, and used to print the New York Times in Ann Arbor, Michigan. A second press, expected to come online this summer, will give the new company, Northwest Offset Printing, a way to print magazine-quality products. Read more in this Spokesman-Review article.

KELLOGG, Idaho —The Silver Valley Community WIFI CO-OP has recently launched to provide community Wi-Fi and free internet connections to Kellogg, Wallace, Pinehurst and Cataldo for residents to do remote learning, apply for essential services, pay bills, and perform other essential tasks. See more at https://www.svwifi.org/home.

SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. — Spokane-based GL8 Hospitality LLC is breaking ground this week on a Tru by Hilton property in Spokane Valley, marking the brand’s first in the state. The 43,000-square-foot, four-story building will be at 13509 E. Mansfield Ave., east of CenterPlace Regional Event Center. The hotel, which will have 92 guest rooms, is expected to open in November 2020. See the full story here.

LEWISTON, Idaho – The Port of Lewiston welcomes Tsceminicum Bottling Company as its newest tenant. The full-service beverage and bottling factory produces Artesian Fusion Brand products in Aluminum, 500ml PET and PHA fully biodegradable plastic bottles, using water directly from their own Artesian well located at their factory, providing nutrient rich minerals from a deep and ancient aquifer. The bottling factory located on Colonel Wright Way will create eight full time and two part time jobs. Artesian Fusion brand products will be available in regional grocery stores and distributed through Idaho. More on Artesian Fusion here.

SPOKANE, Wash. — Palo Alto, California-based electric car manufacturer Tesla Inc. has established a service center in East Spokane.  The company is planning to install 10 more superchargers in Washington, according to its website.  Electric vehicles have grown in popularity in Washington in recent years, with over 42,500 plug-in electric vehicles registered in the state as of December 2018, according to the Washington state Department of Licensing. Over 810 of those were registered in Spokane County. Read more here.

MULLAN, Idaho — Lucky Friday mine, located near Mullan, produced 568,537 ounces of silver in the second quarter of 2020 and expects to reach full production by year-end. Lucky Friday is owned and operate by Coeur d’Alene-based Hecla Mining Co, and is the closest mine to Spokane. A Canadian company is a new investor in Hecla. Hecla Mining Co. has silver mines in Idaho, Alaska, and Mexico, as well as gold mines in Nevada and Quebec. Read the full article in the Journal of Business.

SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. — Etailz has secured $25 million in debt financing to develop new products, expand inventory and grow retail partnerships. The new round of financing will specifically allow the Spokane Valley-based company – which partners with third-party sellers to grow their brands on Amazon, eBay and Walmart – to improve its proprietary software that discovers product trends, identifies new distributors and optimizes price positioning decisions. Etailz was founded in 2008 by Gonzaga University graduate Josh Neblett, his wife, Sarah, and angel investor Tom Simpson. Trans World Entertainment, a publicly traded company, acquired etailz in 2016 for $75 million. Etailz relocated to its 40,000-square-foot Spokane Valley headquarters in 2018. Read more here.

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Inland Northwest Economic Alliance (INEA) is a consortium of fourteen economic development agencies representing fifteen counties in the North Idaho/Eastern Washington region. The collaborative effort is aimed at building economic growth through enhancing the brand recognition of the Inland Northwest and its communities and showcasing its business value.  To learn more, visit www.inlandnorthwestregion.com.

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Area nonprofits adapt to longer fundraising cycles and socially distanced events

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Robin Ohlgren
Tuesday, 25 August 2020 / Published in News + Updates

Article first appeared in Spokane Business Journal, July 30 2020. Written by Virginia Thomas

Socially distanced, socially conscious

Some nonprofits switch to longer fundraising cycles, spend less on overhead

Instead of canceling fundraising events, many Inland Northwest nonprofits have moved them into the digital realm.

Donor participation in charity events is lower, but some nonprofits say they’re receiving nearly as many donations as in prior years from a smaller pool of donors, and nonprofits are saving money by forgoing costly in-person events in favor of low-cost online affairs.

Heather Hamlin, executive director of Women Helping Women Fund, says her staff saw the writing on the wall by mid-March. The organization had planned its 28th annual luncheon for May, but Hamlin and her staff knew well before then that in-person events wouldn’t be possible for several months, at least.

“But the need in the community was bigger than ever,” Hamlin says. “We saw that was going to continue to grow, so we decided to move to a virtual event.”

Women Helping Women Fund decided to change to a longer, eight-week fundraising campaign in which table captains set goals for their groups, who raised money through networking. Keynote speaker Stephanie Land spoke to the organization through a Facebook Live event, which Hamlin says has garnered more than 13,000 views.

Hamlin says Women Helping Women Fund received about $170,000 in private donations in its eight-week campaign, as opposed to the $300,000 the annual luncheon typically generates. Hamlin says corporate donations go to underwriting the event, so Women Helping Women Fund receives every dollar donated by individual donors.

Lutheran Community Services Northwest’s fundraiser was a different story. The annual 8 Lakes Leg Aches bike ride fundraiser, which typically results in about $75,000 in donations, raised about $80,000 in this year’s “virtual ride.”

Clockwise from top left, Stephanie Land, Heather Hamlin, Kris Crocker, and Kristi Gravelle participate in Women Helping Women Fund’s virtual event.

The 22nd annual biking event had been scheduled for June 22 but was rescheduled for July 18. Development manager Christie McKee says the organization had thought an in-person event might be possible. By July, it was clear that wouldn’t happen, and the organization decided to make 8 Lakes Leg Aches a virtual event.

Attendees were invited to complete one of three rides, with routes that were 30, 45, and 70 miles long, on the course of their choice, or even on a stationary bike, between July 11 and July 18. A finish-line event was held via Facebook Live on July 18.

McKee says ridership was down this year, to about 200 participants from nearly 600 riders in past years, but she says she was impressed by the support those 200 riders provided to the organization.

“We had one pledge rider who raised $9,900 who is 90 years old and rode 17 miles to celebrate his 90th birthday,” McKee says. “We had a few others who were able to raise $10,000 each, and several that did $3,000 or more.”

McKee says most riders are from outside of the Spokane area, which was part of the reason for encouraging participants to bike any course. But it also meant that overhead for the fundraiser was much lower.

“Usually, if we have David’s Pizza at the event and we have 600 riders, our bill’s going to be for 600 riders,” McKee says. “We have roughly 160 riders who are here in this area. The others are all out of town, so they’re not even going to go to David’s Pizza.”

McKee also ordered about half as many T-shirts as usual for the event, expecting that participation would be lower.

“We’ll actually net more this year, because our expenses are going to be lower,” McKee says.

Amy Knapton Vega, executive director at Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery, said that when she was trying to decide how to pivot the organization’s annual June benefit luncheon, she was told by some that the organization shouldn’t expect to raise any money from events.

But Vega watched as other organizations held successful fundraising events, and she decided to forge ahead. She asked for help from longtime partner Hamilton Studios, which helped the organization put together a virtual benefit luncheon.

“They helped us navigate through what would work, how to tailor it, and they did a great job of doing their own set up, as far as social distancing,” Vega says.

The online event drew 300 viewers, in comparison to the roughly 1,000 people who usually attend the luncheon. But Vega says the exceeded its goal of $170,000, bringing in a total of $172,000.

Going virtual saved Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery thousands of dollars. Vega says the luncheon usually costs the organization about $40,000. This year, the crisis nursery spent less than $5,000 for its online event.

Don Hamilton, owner of Hamilton Studios, says he started adapting his video production and photography studio into a socially distanced, livestream-capable studio in March. A friend was scheduled to deliver a lecture to a college in Virginia in late March and decided to do so via Zoom. Hamilton thought his friend deserved better than a bland setting.

“It got me wondering — how could I use my cameras, lights, mics, and large studio to safely offer my friend a high-production-value presentation?” Hamilton says. “I started looking into the technology to adapt my motion picture production equipment to support a multicamera, livestreaming studio.”

Hamilton asked the Spokane Regional MarCom Association if he could handle the nonprofit organization’s annual Spark awards event to prove he could do a hybrid virtual event that combined livestreaming with pre-recorded segments.

“They were game, so we started by producing a glossy teaser announcing the event,” Hamilton says. “We then had a number of members of the MarCom board come in, one at a time, to pre-record announcements of the winners.”

Hamilton says the event was a success.

“The show moved seamlessly between pre-recorded packages and the live hosts reading a script from a large studio teleprompter,” he says.

Since then, Hamilton Studios has handled five livestreaming events, including the Vanessa Behan luncheon and YWCA Spokane’s “An Evening in Tuscany” fundraising event.

Social distancing at Hamilton Studio is easy, he says. His studio is located in the former auditorium of St. Joseph Catholic School, and he’s divided the basketball court in half.

“The idea is that whatever we do in there, we get one half-court for the crew and one half-court for the talent, so that nobody’s ever closer than 15 feet,” Hamilton says.

Hamilton says no more than seven people are in the studio at any one time. When a livestreaming event is taking place, just three crew members run the show: Hamilton and his wife, Lorna, sit together at the master controls, where Lorna manages the teleprompter, and Hamilton manages four live cameras in addition to pre-recorded videos. About 25 feet away from master controls, video editor Hannah Sander becomes the live program manager during livestreaming events.

Hamilton says he believes it will be at least another two years before nonprofits can return safely to holding in-person events. In that time, he expects demand for hybrid livestreaming events will increase exponentially.

“I’m already lining up more things,” Hamilton says.

Dana Morris Lee, chief philanthropy officer at YWCA Spokane, says the organization’s livestreaming of its 14th annual Tuscany event surprised her in that it required so much more technical effort and volunteer participation beforehand, as compared to in-person events.

“We had to become virtual experts as quickly as possible,” Morris Lee says. “You need to have a location to do this, and you need somebody who understands the technical restrictions around sound and video, and how to switch between different components of the program.”

An Evening in Tuscany typically draws about 400 people, Morris Lee says. About 200 people watched the livestreamed event.

The fundraising portion of the event was stretched from one night to about six weeks. Morris Lee says the organization decided to do a longer fundraising campaign after watching and learning from other organizations’ events.

“Creating a longer-term fundraising campaign around the event was a critical piece, because you just aren’t going to get the same attendance online that you’re going to get in person,” Morris Lee says.

YWCA Spokane had hoped to raise $100,000. As of July 20, the fundraising campaign had received about $75,000. Now, Morris Lee says she hopes to reach $92,000 by Friday, July 31, when the campaign ends.

While an online event can provide a nonprofit with some funding, Vega says she still missed being in a roomful of people who have a long-standing relationship with the crisis nursery.

“It always feels like you’re going to a kind of reunion,” she says. “It’s always so fun to get to visit and catch up on things, and we just didn’t get that luxury this year. That was probably the hardest part of it.”

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