Airway Heights-based Wemco Inc., a light industrial equipment manufacturer, is starting a $6 million project to build a new production facility on a 10-acre parcel on the West Plains, says John Rouse, the company's vice president.

The project is among about half a dozen separate development projects planned or under way on the West Plains that have a combined value of about $40 million.

Wemco, which currently is located in a leased 18,000-square-foot plant at 2823 S. Craig Road, manufactures equipment for industrial, construction, aerospace, mining, and agricultural use, including industrial cranes. It also installs cranes and provides crane service and inspections.

Rouse says site work began in September at 5510 W. Thorpe Road, where the company plans to build a 68,000-square-foot manufacturing facility and three smaller support buildings. The company started planning the expansion around 2001.

Rouse and his wife, Karma, co-own Wemco as well as Thorpe-Abbott Properties LLC, the entity that owns the Thorpe property and is developing the new facility. Garco Construction Inc., of Spokane, will be the contractor, and Spokane Valley-based Architectural Ventures designed the project.

He says the company also hired Lance Pounder Excavation Inc., of Spokane, to handle the site work, and Spokane-based LSB Consulting Engineers PLLC is the lead engineering firm for the project.

Spokane County recently issued a building permit for the footings and foundations of one of the support structures, a 19,000-square-foot paint-and-processing building. Rouse says similar foundation work is expected to start soon on the separate manufacturing facility.

"We're doing these partial permits now to get some of the work started before winter starts," Rouse says. "We would expect completion to be sometime mid-summer next year for the main light-industrial manufacturing building and the support paint-and-processing building."

However, he adds the transition of moving all operations to the new site will take longer.

"I think we'll be running both plants for a while," he says. "It will take some time to move the equipment we have."

Rouse says two smaller structures likely will be built in 2015 on the property. Those are likely to include an 8,700-square-foot storage building and a two-story corporate office building with about 25,000 square feet of floor space.

The company employs 32 people and currently is hiring machinists, fabricators, design engineers, and mechanical engineers. Rouse declines to say how many employees the company plans to add in the next year, but he says he expects its workforce to grow significantly.

The new facility is designed to support Wemco's work on large mining equipment projects as well as hydroelectric power projects, crane rehabilitation work, and other equipment manufacturing.

The manufacturing building will include machine and fabrication shop areas. It also will have six Wemco-manufactured overhead traveling bridge cranes to handle equipment weighing up to 40 tons, and a number of automated pieces of milling and turning equipment.

In recent years, the company has added a significant amount of work as a manufacturer of aerospace tooling equipment for a division of Boeing Co., Rouse says.

"We're building the tooling components or equipment that supports the manufacturing of aircraft, not the aircraft itself," he adds.

A short distance from the planned Wemco facility, Bellevue, Wash.-based wholesale beverage distributor Odom Corp. is building a $20 million, 200,000-square-foot regional warehouse facility at 5810 W. Thorpe on 43 acres of land. The Design Group, headquartered in the Boston area, is the general contractor and has hired Spokane Valley-based Divcon Inc. to perform the structural work.

Other West Plains projects are in various stages of construction, including work currently under way for two trucking-related companies along Westbow Lane.

Divcon is building a $2 million, 23,000-square-foot repair and service facility at 10211 W. Westbow for Thermo King Northwest, which mainly repairs refrigeration units for trucks and semitrailers. Near that facility, at 10401 W. Westbow, Baker Construction & Development Inc., of Spokane, is working on a $2 million, 24,000-square-foot center for Utility Trailer Sales of Idaho, which will operate here as Utility Trailer Sales of Spokane Co.

In September, Spokane-based Associated Painters Inc. requested permits for site work and to construct footings and foundations for a $5.5 million, 32,000-square-foot second aircraft-painting hangar at Spokane International Airport. Garco Construction Inc., of Spokane, is the contractor.

Earlier this year, Great Falls, Mont.-based CSWW Inc., which does business as Big R Stores, said it has acquired nearly 30 acres of land on the West Plains, reportedly to develop a large retail store and distribution facility there.

John Miller, Divcon chairman, says a company in which he is involved is scheduled in the second quarter of 2014 to begin construction of a $4 million, 67,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution center, which is planned on the southwest corner of Grove and Thorpe.

Miller says Spokane Valley-based Millson LLC, which he owns with his wife, Susan, plans to develop that structure speculatively, meaning they don't have a set tenant for it yet.

As reported previously in the Journal, the Washington state Department of Transportation plans to make Interstate 90-Medical Lake interchange improvements a higher priority when considering state fund disbursement.

The DOT says it chose to move the Medical Lake interchange up in priority for funding because of the recent increase in development activity near there. Last year, Caterpillar Logistics Service Inc., the Illinois-based subsidiary of heavy equipment behemoth Caterpillar Inc., opened a 562,000-square-foot distribution facility on part of a 72-acre site east of the Medical Lake interchange.

Along with Caterpillar, UTC Aerospace Systems, a company that makes carbon aircraft brakes, also is located in the West Plains area, and Triumph Composite Systems Inc., which makes composite interior components for commercial aircraft, is located in neighboring Airway Heights.

Shane Miller, president of Divcon, says the West Plains area is attracting the flurry of construction activity mainly because of quick access to I-90, adequate infrastructure, and attention drawn by big projects such as the Caterpillar distribution facility.

"It's definitely an up-and-coming area for the distribution industry," Miller says. "They have the infrastructure there and great freeway access right off of I-90, as close to the city as you can get."

Ken Cook, owner of the truck and semitrailer dealership Freedom Truck Centers Inc., agrees the West Plains area is attractive because of infrastructure and easy highway access for heavy-duty trucks. Freedom Truck Centers built a $7 million facility at 10310 W. Westbow, near the Medical Lake interchange, a few years ago.

"You have the water, sewer; it has the infrastructure, and it has easy access for heavy-duty trucks," Cook says. "It's an area that has a lot of land, and it offers the opportunity to be close to the freeway."