The Dirt: Owner of Thai Bamboo plans new location on Spokane’s South Hill

The owner of several Thai Bamboo restaurants in the Spokane area has filed a building permit with the city for another location on the South Hill.

Owner Tom Burgess filed a permit Thursday to build a more than 7,400-square-foot restaurant with a patio at 2215 E. 29th Ave.

Spokane Valley-based T.W. Clark Construction is the project contractor. Russell Page Architects is the project architect. The project is valued at $1.2 million, according to building permits.

Thai Bamboo, which was founded by Burgess in 2001, has three restaurants in Spokane and a location in Coeur d’Alene.

Permits filed for Fruci Building renovations

Renovations to the Fruci Building in downtown Spokane are moving forward, according to permits recently filed with the city.

Fruci Family LLC filed an application to change the building’s designation to mixed use, which will make way for more than 27 short-term travel apartments at 218 N. Bernard St.

Vacation rental company Stay Alfred entered a 10-year lease agreement with real estate developer Roger Fruci, Jr., who is renovating the building’s upper floors into the travel apartments.

The renovations are anticipated to be complete by June, Mike Wilson, Stay Alfred’s senior vice president of real estate told The Spokesman-Review in an interview last year.

First-floor tenants FedEx, SpaBlue in the City and Edward Jones are expected to remain in the building.

Renovations are valued at $2.9 million. Spokane-based Wolff Architectural Group is the project contractor.

The upper floors in the Fruci Building have remained vacant since Fruci & Associates moved its accounting firm in 2016 to its current location on North Washington Street.

Fruci’s father, Roger Fruci Sr., purchased the building in the 1950s. The building was constructed in 1905 with several single-occupancy rooms on the upper floors, which once housed miners and loggers after the turn of the century.

Stay Alfred operates more than 2,500 vacation rental units in 33 cities.

Airgas to build location in Spokane Valley

Airgas, a distributor of industrial, medical and specialty gases, has filed permits to build a location in Spokane Valley.

The company filed plans to build a more than 9,700-square-foot building near the southwest corner of Fancher Road and Desmet Avenue.

The project contractor is Spokane-based Yost Gallagher. Spokane Valley-based Mercier Architecture is the project architect.

Airgas was founded in 1982 and acquired by Air Liquide in 2016. It has more than 1,400 locations nationwide, with a branch in Moses Lake and a dry-ice store near the Spokane Industrial Park.