Spokane Teachers Credit Union, one of Spokanes biggest credit unions, has bought a two-building office complex on 11.3 acres in the MeadowWood Business Park at Liberty Lake from Spokanes Egghead.com Inc., and plans to move about 85 employees there.


Spokane Teachers bought the two buildings, which together have 115,960 square feet of floor space, for $7.5 million, says Steve Dahlstrom, Spokane Teachers president and CEO.


Egghead.com will lease nearly 8,500 square feet of space from Spokane Teachers for use as its headquarters. The credit union also extended a current lease held by Software Spectrum Inc., which occupies about 71,000 square feet of space at the facility, says Mark Pinch, president of Tomlinson Black Commercial Inc., which handled the sale from Spokane Teachers end. Pinch says that the decision to extend Software Spectrums lease was an excellent business move on the part of Spokane Teachers and helped seal the sale.


The remaining about 36,400 square feet of space will be used by Spokane Teachers to house its support services, which will be moved from the credit unions main office at 106 W. Nora and from a branch office at 55 W. Mission.


Dahlstrom says that by moving its accounting, information systems, loan servicing, and administration departments to the Liberty Lake facility from the office on Nora, the credit union will be able to expand retail services at its main office. Also, the credit unions marketing, human resources, Visa-card services, and phone service departments, which currently are located at the branch on Mission, also will move to the Liberty Lake office. The move into the Liberty Lake facility is expected to be completed in early 1999, he says.


Renovation work is expected to begin at the Nora office this fall; it will involve modifying existing space to make more room for teller transactions, member services, vehicle financing, consumer lending, real estate lending, and student services.


Moving our behind-the-scenes departments to (Liberty Lake) should prove to be a great benefit for members, Dahlstrom says. The Liberty Lake site is even better equipped to handle our members telephone and Internet-based account access needs.


The facility, which was bought by Egghead.com in 1995 and previously had housed some operations of Hewlett-Packard Co.s Spokane Division, is equipped with high-bandwidth communication connections and an independent power-generation system that will help assure electronic access for members even in the event of extended power outages, the credit union says.


Jeff McGougan, a senior associate in Tomlinson Black Commercials office division, represented Spokane Teachers in the sales transaction, and Bill Brooks, of SDS Realty Inc., of Spokane, represented Egghead.com. McGougan also arranged the lease agreements for both Egghead.com and Software Spectrum.


In addition to remodeling its main office, Dahlstrom says that Spokane Teachers plans to expand some of its other branches this year. However, he declines to disclose specifics about those plans for now.Annual reportMeanwhile, Spokane Teachers reported solid results for 1997, posting net income of $4.34 million, up 5.3 percent from the $4.12 million it reported for 1996. It paid out $9.3 million in dividends last year.


Loans totaled about $200.7 million as of Dec. 31, up 16.3 percent from year-end 1996. Assets rose 9 percent to an all-time high of $288 million at year-end 1997, and membership swelled to 58,600, up from nearly 50,800 a year earlier.


Dahlstrom says that the increase in membership partly was due to Spokane Teachers merger with Riverside Federal Credit Union and also because the credit union was given approval in 1997 to serve anyone who lives or works on Spokanes North Side.


Spokane Teachers gained about 1,000 members from Riverside Federal, which had served the employees and families of Cominco American Inc. and Johnson Matthey Electronics Inc. Dahlstrom adds that the credit union has been adding an average of between 400 and 500 new members a month.


Spokane Teachers, which operates five branches in Spokane and one in Newport, Wash., offers service to anyone who lives or works on Spokanes South Hill, North Side, or in the Spokane Valley, school employees anywhere in the Spokane area, Spokane-based alumni of any Washington college or university, and residents of Stevens County.