Planet Beach day spa to open at Wandermere
Marie Rosenthal says she has leased a 1,900-square-foot space in the Wandermere Village Shopping Center, on the east side of U.S. 395 in the Wandermere area, and plans to open a day spa franchise outlet there, named Planet Beach Wandermere Village.

The spa will be affiliated with Louisiana-based Planet Beach Contempo Spas and will have automated machines that provide massages, facials, teeth whitening, and tanning. It will sell beauty and nutrition products and accessories. Members will pay a monthly fee for unlimited use of the facilities.

Rosenthal says she hopes to open the spa on Jan. 1 and will be selling memberships for two months prior to opening. She says she expects to hire seven employees, six full time and one part time, to staff the facility.

"I wanted to do something different. I wanted to own my own business," Rosenthal says. She has been a police officer with the city of Spokane for eight years, and will remain with the force.

Another Planet Beach day spa franchise, owned by Stan and Charlotte Nemec, opened at 509 N. Sullivan in Spokane Valley in 2008.

AE Consulting targets nonprofits, small firms
Andrea Estes has started a home-based business here, AE Consulting LLC, that offers project-management services to small businesses and nonprofits.

AE Consulting's services range from developing or improving Web sites, developing funding strategies, and organizing internal operations and procedures to launching advertising strategies and rebranding a company's image.

"We offer professional services that save small to mid-sized organizations the cost of hiring a full-time employee," she says.

Estes graduated from the University of Washington and worked in Seattle as a recruiter for Chameleon Technologies Inc. and as an operations manager for the Catch a Thrill Foundation. She says she has retained the foundation as a client, and also has been hired by Spokane veterinarian Rich Sylvester to market his practice.

Downtown, South Hill yoga studio owners to merge businesses
Spokane Yoga Shala, owned by Katie Gehn since 2003, and Twist Yoga Studio, owned by Shelley Alkier since 2007, will merge next month under the name Spokane Yoga Shala, the owners say.

Alkier will close her 1,500-square-foot studio at 176 S. Howard in downtown Spokane Oct. 29, and Gehn's 2,500-square-foot studio at 505 E. 24th on Spokane's South Hill currently is being renovated. The merged studios will reopen on Nov. 3 in the South Hill location, the owners say.

Each studio currently has five independent contractors teaching classes. The owners say all 10 instructors will remain with the merged studios.

Gehn says the two studios offer similar programs and use similar teaching methods. Both owners are mothers of young children who wanted more time at home.

"We realized we were not utilizing our resources efficiently," Gehn says. "If we combined, it would reduce our overhead by half and cut our (work) time in half. It was a quality-of-life choice."

The new partners say the merged studios will offer more classes and more class levels for their 1,500-plus students.

Cd'A computer sales, repair store opens


Ben Danforth has opened a computer sales and repair store, named Click Computer Services, in a 740-square-foot space at 610 W. Hubbard, in Coeur d'Alene.

The store offers Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. processors and Microsoft Corp. products for sale.

Danforth says he will repair "anything and everything" that can go wrong with computers, including virus and spyware cleanup and hardware failures. He says he also will do upgrades and solve problems with networks and wireless connections.

"If I can't fix it, I don't charge for it. I'm interested in providing honest and affordable service," Danforth says.

He says he was a partner in another computer store in Coeur d'Alene for eight years before opening Click Computer Services.

New aquarium store to offer rare varieties, special tank services
The Yuppy Guppy LLC, a new tropical fish store, will open Nov. 1 in a 2000-square-foot space at 3803 N. Division, say owners Tina Hammond and Laurie Davenport.

The Yuppy Guppy will sell 60 different varieties of fish, many of them rare and hard to find, as well as tanks, fish medication items, and other supplies, Hammond says. It also will offer in-home or in-office tank setup and a monthly cleaning service and will have a rescue tank at the store for people who no longer are able or willing to care for their fish, she says.

Hammond says all the fish at the store will be quarantined and medicated for seven days before being sold to ensure they're healthy. The business also will test water in clients' troubled aquariums and diagnose and treat fish illnesses.

Davenport and Hammond are sisters. Hammond says Davenport has worked as an aquarist and has owned aquarium shops in Canada and Crescent City, Calif. Hammond recently graduated from Gonzaga University with a master's degree in organizational leadership, owned an auto-repair shop in Tacoma, and opened call centers here and in Canada.

Thin Air gets grant toward construction of full-power station
Thin Air Community Radio, of Spokane, which operates KYRS-LP at 92.3 FM and 89.9 FM, has received a grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration division of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The $188,000 grant will provide funding toward building a full-power, non-commercial radio station at 88.1 FM, KYRS says.

KYRS currently operates at 100 watts. The new station plans to operate at 6,500 watts to double its coverage area, protect its broadcasting frequency, and expand its programming, which its Web site calls "a mix of news, views, culture, and music often overlooked by other media." KYRS says more funding will be needed.