The Kalispel Tribe of Indians is developing a convenience store and gas station on part of a large parcel of land it owns just south of its recently expanded Northern Quest Resort & Casino, in Airway Heights, where it has said it envisions a mixed-use development.

Garco Construction Inc., of Spokane, began work on the project in mid-March and expects to complete it in mid-August, says Kevin Shafer, who is managing the project for Garco. Wolfe Architectural Group PS, of Spokane, designed the project.

Shafer says the 5,000-square-foot, upscale convenience store will be a glass-and-steel structure, and the gas station portion of the project will have five islands with a total of 10 fueling dispensers. The Chevron-branded facility is being developed on a roughly 4.5-acre site, he says.

Shafer referred questions about the cost and other details of the project to tribal representatives, who couldn't be reached for comment.

Kent Caputo, chief operating officer for the Kalispel Tribal Economic Authority, had said last November that the tribe might begin work as early as this past spring on infrastructure improvements for the envisioned mixed-used center. He said that would depend entirely, though, on demand for space there by prospective tenants, which has remained low due to the sluggish economy.

The mixed-use development would be located on part of nearly 300 acres of land the tribe owns on the west side of Hayford Road. Most of that land is south of the casino, which as of late last year employed about 1,200 people, and a portion of the land fronts on U.S. 2. The tribe recently wrapped up construction of a 250-room hotel and luxury spa complex next to the casino.

The 10-story hotel tower is the centerpiece of a $200 million-plus, multiphase expansion project envisioned there, not including the undetermined cost of the envisioned mixed-use development. U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., announced last summer that she had secured $1.4 million to help pay for a road extension into Kalispel land there designated for nongaming economic development.

Caputo said at the time, though, that the tribe still was in preliminary discussion with the city of Airway Heights about what types of uses would be appropriate there and hadn't developed a detailed conceptual site plan yet.

He said the Spokane-area market would dictate the mix of businesses that will locate there, though it likely would include dining and entertainment venues, including spaces for festivals, powwows, and other such public gatherings.

The Kalispels' convenience store-gas station facility will open just about four years after the Spokane Tribe of Indians opened a 6,400-square-foot SPOKO Fuel convenience store-gas station just west of Airway Heights on a 145-acre parcel of trust land.

The Spokane Tribe said that project was the first phase of an envisioned $130 million commercial development, possibly including a casino, that the tribe estimated would employ 2,100 people. Plans for that larger development, though, haven't progressed much since then.

The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs announced in a notice of intent published last fall that it will work with the tribe to prepare an environmental impact statement for the project and corresponding master plan. That process still is in the early scoping phase, and a tribal spokeswoman says there isn't a clear timetable for when a draft EIS will be completed.