A new wellness clinic that offers a variety of nontraditional body treatments and counseling services opened last month in Spokane Valley.

Called Balanced Life Center and located at 12929 E. Sprague, the 3,200-square-foot clinic houses five specialists who practice alternative forms of medicine, says Cassandra Lucas, who owns the business with her husband, Kevin Lucas.

Three of the specialists now practicing at the center lease the space they use from the Lucases, Cassandra Lucas says, adding that those specialists practice independently.

Kevin Lucas, who is a licensed structural-integration therapist, also sees clients in the space and formerly was offering his services at another space in Spokane Valley before he and his wife opened Balanced Life Center, she says. She adds that he's been practicing that form of body treatment here for about five years.

Structural integration is a form of massage combined with elements of physical therapy, Lucas says. She says it's lesser known than most traditional styles of massage, and that it focuses on a specific type of body tissue called fascia. Fascia is the connective tissue that holds the internal structures and organs of body in place. Another term for structural integration is Rolfing, which is a trademarked term and is named after the doctor who developed it in the 1950s, she adds.

Kevin Lucas practices at Balanced Life Center under the separate business name Structural Innovations, and another structural-integration specialist, Kristoff Saurette, works for that company, Cassandra Lucas says.

The other specialists who are independently leasing space at Balanced Life Center include an acupuncturist and Chinese herbal medicine specialist; a counseling therapist; and a practitioner of an alternative form of healing called cranial sacral therapy.

A fifth independently practicing specialist will begin leasing space at Balanced Life Center in July, Lucas says, and that person will provide dietician and nutrition services.

Cassandra Lucas says she oversees the operational aspects of the center and doesn't specialize in any specific type of wellness treatments. Before Balanced Life Center opened, the practitioners involved in the center had referred clients to each other, Lucas says, and that's how they came up with the idea to relocate into a shared space.

"By bringing them all here we set up a one-stop shop for people," Lucas says.

Besides the separate treatment areas being leased by Balanced Life's practitioners, the building it's located in includes a 1,500-square-foot classroom area where Lucas says she hopes to eventually offer wellness-related classes.