Here’s the Dirt : Spokane’s oldest KFC will be rebuilt

The oldest-standing KFC restaurant in Spokane is being rebuilt as part of a franchise-wide plan to update all the stores by 2008.

Brett Sibert, whose family-owned company Northwest Restaurants Inc. of Woodinville, Wash., purchased the seven Spokane County KFCs in November, said the restaurant at 1812 W. Northwest Blvd. will follow a new company prototype.

“There aren’t more than 12 of these in the country,” Sibert said, adding that stores on North Division Street and on East Sprague Avenue also are slated for renovation.

With upholstered seating for 65, the Northwest Boulevard KFC will have a comfortable dine-in atmosphere for customers, Sibert said, and its exterior will buck the contemporary box-with-awning trend.

“It’s going to be beautiful and very unique for customers who’ve never seen anything like this from KFC,” he said.

Northwest Restaurants is building the new KFC behind the existing store on land that previously held two houses. Those homes have been demolished and construction will soon begin on the $1.1 million restaurant, he said.

The old store will remain open through the first week of July and then close for a month for demolition. In August, the new 3,200-square-foot restaurant will open, he said.

KFC restaurants are part of Yum! Brands Inc., which operates or licenses more than 34,000 fast foot restaurants, including KFC, A&W, Taco Bell, Long John Silver’s and Pizza Hut in more than 100 countries, the company Web site said.

Some locations combine multiple brands — including the KFC/A&W on 29th Avenue and the KFC/Long John Silver’s at the North Division Y. A new store offering KFC and A&W brands opened in Airway Heights two years ago.

Sibert’s dad, Sam Sibert, owns 71 KFCs in Washington, Oregon and North Carolina. Sibert originally partnered in the local restaurants with Matt Jankowski of Spokane, who bought out the partnership and then resold the restaurants to his former business partner last November, when he wanted to retire.

The north Division KFC will be remodeled this August, Brett Sibert said, into a multi-brand KFC and Long John Silver’s. The KFC at 9512 E. Sprague in Spokane Valley is scheduled for updates next year.

Senior apartments planned for East Central neighborhood

A 25-unit senior housing project is going in across from East Central Community Center in Spokane, on the north side of 5th Avenue, between Lee and Stone streets.

The two-story complex is being built on land that once housed several meth houses and will include a garden area and apartments that are rent-subsidized for people earning at or below 50 percent of the area’s median wage (about $20,000 or less a year), said Shannon Meagher, developer of the project.

Planning has been underway for five years, said Meagher, the director of the community building department at Kiemle & Hagood Co. who wrote grants for the project.

“This type of non-profit development is very time consuming,” she said.

The city used community block grant funds to obtain the parcels and then sold the half-block of land to the non-profit ECCO Senior Housing for $2.

Major contributions have been provided by Avista Utilities, Spokane County Affordable Trust Fund, Spokane Home Funds and the East Central Neighborhood Council, she said. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development contributed $3.2 million for the project.

Meagher said the East Central neighborhood lacks senior housing and this location is ideal because seniors are directly across from East Central Community Center, which includes a medical clinic, senior meals and exercise classes, as well as an adjacent library.

Spokane man in on big build

Bill McMillan, a construction supervisor with Habitat for Humanity, has been chosen from a group of nearly 600 applicants to participate in a week-long build that will result in the completion of nine homes in five days on a recently donated piece of land in Guadalupe, Ariz., a small community located between Phoenix and Tempe.

McMillan is a construction supervisor with Habitat for Humanity who will join nearly 300 other volunteers from across the country, including more than 120 Whirlpool employees, for the May Whirlpool Building Blocks project.