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Riverstone is already bustling with activity and will soon open a Barnes and Noble Booksellers as well as a brand new Fitness Facililty.

Barnes and Noble will stock close to 200,000 book, music, magazine, and DVD titles as well as include a cafe serving Starbucks Coffee. The new Barnes and Noble Jr. Department will hold over 15,000 titles in an easy to browse environment. The Bookstore will also be a Wi-Fi hot spot for the Village at Riverstone as Barnes and Noble will become the community center for the Village at Riverstone. Events will include author readings and discussions, book clubs, and programs with local organizations.

The Ironwood Athletic club will operate a brand new 70,000 SF fitness facility in Riverstone this summer. Included in this facility will be a 25-yard long lap pool, warm water therapy pool, spa, basketball court, weight room, cardio equipment, five indoor tennis courts, squash and racquetball courts, wellness rooms for yoga and pilates, and a spinning room. The new gym will be located just 3-acres from Riverstone Lake.

Call us today at 208.292.0935 to learn more about owning a piece of Riverstone. Condominiums start at $295,000.

And the city will do it without any of the three elements – universities, state government or regional health-care centers – that typically prop up local economies when the nation as a whole is struggling.

Business consultant Mark Hovind identified 27 “recession-proof” places from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data on job expansion and work force growth.

All the cities added jobs faster than potential new employees joined the work force during the 1990, 2001 and 2007 recessions, if those years indeed were recessions.

Coeur d’Alene was the only such community in Idaho, Billings the only in Montana, and Bend the only in Oregon.

In Washington, Olympia, Bellingham and the Tri-Cities met Lovind’s criteria.
Jonathan Coe, president of the Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce, attributed the city’s health during hard times to the diversity of businesses, its attraction as a tourist destination, and its status as a refuge for the wealthy, who are less vulnerable to recessions.

But characterizing Coeur d’Alene as invulnerable to business cycles might be going a little too far, Coe said.

“Recession-proof is an awfully ambitious term,” he said. “It makes me a little uneasy.”

Each of Hovind’s 27 communities has an economy built around some industry, or mix of industries, that “don’t follow the business cycle pattern,” said Matt Martin, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank’s Charlotte office.
In Olympia, the cash cow is state government.

At the southernmost tip of Puget Sound, the population of this smallish city of 44,000 swells during the legislative session, when lawmakers, lobbyists and special interest groups swarm downtown coffee shops and eateries. Olympia is home not only to the Capitol and the bustle of politics that surrounds it, but also to two regional hospitals, Evergreen State College and a lively arts community.

In addition to numerous galleries, downtown Olympia hosts the Washington Center, home to the Olympia Symphony Orchestra, Harlequin Productions at the historic State Theater, as well as the Capital Playhouse. The 125-seat, black-box theater runs 11 musicals a year, and the three-week shows were so popular, they added another weekend to each musical starting last September.

“None of those things individually is a significant driver by themselves, but what they do do is drive the economies of other businesses,” said Jeff Kingsbury, who founded the playhouse. “It’s such a diverse mix of businesses and the thriving arts, it really helps stabilize the economy all the time.”

Located close to both the mountains and the coast, Olympia also earns points for air quality, low crime and other quality-of-life measures. But it’s that constant of state government that is “the great equalizer for us,” said Michael Cade, executive director of the Thurston County Economic Development Council.

“State capitals are good, especially if … state government’s large relative to the size of the town,” said Martin, the Fed economist.
Of course, even these “well-insulated” places – Martin’s term – would feel the effects of a recession.

Hovind said his use of the term “recession-proof” shouldn’t be misconstrued as meaning a place is untouched by economic malaise.
“It’s not absolute. You can’t look at it in those terms. This is a continuous scale of gray,” he says.

For more race information please visit the marathon website at www.cdamarathon.com.

Also, view the results at www.racecenter.com. Just click on results at the top of the screen.

Keep an eye out for pictures of the event on the Riverstone website.

07.03.08 – 25th Army Band (variety show includes concert band, big band, and ensembles!).

07.10.08 – CdA Big Band

07.17.08 – Kathy Colton & The Reluctants (folk)

07.24.08 – Joliene Felice (blues)

07.31.08 – Jazz Northwest

08.07.08 – Lake City String Quartet

08.14.08 – Motorboat (bluesy rock)

08.21.08 – Ryan Larsen (country)

08.28.08 – The Culprits (blues)

The 195,000 square foot, three building complex will employ more than 600 people. The site is located on Sixth Street in Kirkland, Washington.

The open house marked a first step in obtaining a certification by the U.S. Green Building Council that the project is environmentally sustainable.

Criteria includes building and construction standards, site cleanup, water conservation, and the use of recycled materials.

Ironwood Athletic Club is set to move, change name. Soon, Ironwood members will have a new facility to call home. After 27 years at its original locaiton, the Ironwood Athletic Club is planning to move to a new $15 million facility in the Village at Riverstone.

Construction on the new 88,000 SF facility is set to begin in mid-August and the gym owner expects the gym to open next spring.

In addition to the new facility, the gym will also change its name when the new location opens. The Ironwood Athletic Club, and World Gyms in Hayden and Post Falls will become the Peak Health and Wellness Centers.

The new facility, which will be located adjacent to Riversotne Park on the Centennial Trail, will feature 25-yard indoor and outdoor lap pools, five seperate activity studios and expanded tennis, racquetball and squash courts. All cardio equipment will be outfitted with personal television screens, 16 of which will be located in “Cardio theater” that will show feature length films on a large screen.

Read the article in today’s press, and visit the Village at Riverstone to see this magnificent development.