Walgreen's plans to open west side store on Friday

The facade of the new store at Skyline and Broadway.

Walgreen's is planning to open its new store on Idaho Falls' west side this Friday.

The store at 1604 West Broadway is one of the Illinois-based chain's "Well Experience" locations, company spokesman Phil Caruso said. Walgreen’s introduced the format in 2010, hoping to offer more integrated health and wellness products. It includes a private consultation room for meeting with pharmacists and receiving health services like flu shots and vaccination. The front of the store focuses on daily living needs, including beauty, health and household products.

“It is set up to focus on wellness and healthy living, which we hope you will see from the floor plan and the way it's set up," he said.

Walgreen's has been doing business on the west side at 1850 West Broadway, where it moved in after buying Westgate Drug nearly 10 years ago. The staff and all prescription files will be moved Thursday night, so anyone who gets a prescription earlier in the week and plans to pick it up Friday will have to go to the new store, Caruso said.

Using a Realtor vs. For Sale By Owner

Tanyan Davies-Wall

Homeowners know their homes better than anyone else, but that doesn't always mean they are the best salespeople for their homes.

Some sellers try For-Sale-By-Owner because they want to avoid paying a commission to real estate agents. Others are tempted into believing that in a sellers market their homes ought to be easy to sell on their own.

Statistics show that selling your home with a Realtor will bring you a higher profit, even with the commission taken out. The National Association of Realtors reported that in 2013 the average FSBO sale price was $175,000 while average sale price with an agent was $215,000. That doesn't necessarily mean a Realtor can get you an additional 23 percent in profit. But he or she may have a better idea of what your home is worth and what can be done to get the best price for it.

 Consider the advantages a Realtor has:

• Access to market data to position the home on the market appropriately
• Evaluation of the local market and comparable home  values
• Expertise on how to improve a home’s appearance by staging and minor repairs, so it will appeal to a wider  audience of buyers 
• Expertise at negotiating contracts and paperwork and scheduling of inspections and appraisals. 
• Access to advertising, including the Multiple Listing Service and other media.
• Flexibility to show the property when you aren’t available
• The option of screening visitors to your home, which provides a measure of safety
• Ability to coordinate with the buyer’s agent through the escrow process
• Expertise at closing, making sure everything is correct, evaluating documents and answering questions. 

Most buyers use an agent to help in negotiating their contract with the seller. People who go the FSBO route have to rely on themselves to finalize a contract. The paperwork involved in selling and buying a home has increased dramatically as industry disclosures and regulations have become mandatory. This is one of the reasons that the percentage of people FSBOing has dropped from 19 percent to 9 percent over the last 20 years.

Think about it. You may end up selling your home for less money and having to deal with legal problems unless you seek the help of an attorney to advise on the legal aspects of the contract. This is why most sellers prefer to work with an agent rather than risk an unsatisfactory home selling experience.
Tanyan Davies-Wall is a Realtor with Voigt-Davis Realty and a member of the Square One business development network.

Silver Star plans data center for Idaho Falls

Ron McCue

Silver Star Communications is planning to set up a data center in Idaho Falls by next summer, but the challenge is to find a building the right size that is in the right place.

Ron McCue, the company’s president and chief operating officer, said they envision an operation between 30,000 and 50,000 square feet located in a spot that can serve both Idaho Falls Power and Rocky Mountain Power.

“We would like to find an existing building to retrofit,” he said. Rather than constructing something new and nondescript, the company would much prefer to find and interesting old building to remodel. He estimated the cost will be more than $10 million.

Silver Star has already been partnering with Idaho Falls Power, using the city’s dark fiber to provide service to commercial and industrial customers. From Idaho Falls, it has its own fiber to Salt Lake City, where it has Tier 1 servers in the Kearns Building.

“We think eastern Idaho is incredibly important to our economic vitality,” McCue said.

The company has a commitment to rural customers that dates back to the 1920s, when farmers and ranchers in lower Star Valley, Wyoming, built their own phone system. Silver Star Telephone Co. was incorporated in 1948 and in 1953 it a loan from the Rural Electrification Administration that allowed them to build a modern dial system.

Melvin and Ardell Hoopes purchased the controlling interest in the company in 1956, eventually acquiring the remaining stock, and by 1961 they had expanded service into Idaho, providing service to Irwin, Palisades and Swan Valley, and expanding in 1964 to serve the tiny communities of Henry and Wayan.

McCue came to work for the company in 1989, just in time for the revolutionary changes brought on by the Internet. There is no such thing as a telephone company anymore. “Companies really need to be focused on being a broadband company,” he said.

Good Internet service is essential to electrical utilities operating at maximum efficiency. By having large commercial and industrial customers on a high-capacity system, Idaho Falls Power can shed load automatically during times of peak usage. “Say you’ve got a really hot day during the summer when everyone is running their air conditioners at maximum capacity,” McCue said. “We can find industrial equipment that may be unnecessarily consuming power and shut it down, avoiding brownouts and outages.”

Silver Star also sees opportunity in Ammon, which has been building its own fiber network the past three or four years. Unlike Idaho Falls’ network, which dates back more than 10 years and is focused mainly on serving government and business, Ammon is stringing fiber to residences as well.

“People take rising levels of speed for granted,” McCue said. “In a way, it’s just like the old days. When they called Aunt Bessie in Denver, they didn’t really care how the call was routed.”

EIRMC fills three leadership positions

Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center announced today that three leadership positions have been filled, two by people in interim positions.

Dr. Aaron Harris has been named executive director of  EIRMC's Behavioral Health Center. For the past five years, Harris has served in multiple clinical and leadership roles at the Robert J. Dole Veterans Administration Medical Center – a level 2 teaching facility in Wichita, Kan. Most recently, he served as the associate chief of staff, providing daily operational oversight and strategic direction to more than 100 staff and 14 mental health programs. He and his wife, Erin, have six children.

Iris Torvik, current interim director of women's services will be continuing her role permanently at EIRMC. Before coming to EIRMC, she served as the vice president of Baylor University Medical Center, a 1,017-bed flagship hospital of Baylor Health Care System in Dallas, Texas, a position she held for 10 years. She is most looking forward to helping build the Women’s and Children’s Services lines.

Barry Hawthorne, interim director of emergency services, will be continuing his role permanently at EIRMC. Hawthorne has worked in health care for more than 35 years. With a base of clinical services in ED, Trauma and Open Heart Critical Care, Barry brings over 10 years in CNO roles and over 6 years in transitional/ interim leadership/operational consultant roles across the nation.

Hawthorne said decided to stay at EIRMC because he loves the people here and sees great potential for EIRMC to lead the region in emergency care.

Black Rock plans March 28 grand opening

Vino Rosso is no more. Black Rock Fine Wine and Craft Beer is planning a grand opening March 28. New owner Chuck Chute, who bought the A Street business from Bret and Sara Scibior, has repainted the interior dark sage and peppercorn grey, and the bar top and fireplace have been refaced with stone. “We want to take all the best that is already here and optimize it,” Chute said. That will include more music and food. Since the place has a kitchen, Chute described his culinary concept as “small plates, big flavor, low cost.”

Melaleuca holds open house at new world headquarters

Melaleuca CEO Frank VanderSloot speaking on the grand staircase Monday at the company's new world headquarters south of Idaho Falls.

Melaleuca held an open house Monday at its new world headquarters south of Idaho Falls. Given its size, it’s impossible to ignore whichever way you are headed on Interstate 15.

With a 355,000-square-foot floor plan, it’s big enough to cover six football fields. The facility incorporates at large meeting room that can hold 1,700 people, a call center that can hold 400, and all the company’s research and development labs and audio and video studios.

All of it is paid for, said CEO Frank VanderSloot. With facilities in Idaho Falls, Rexburg, Knoxville, Tenn., and Shanghai, China, the company is debt-free, he said.

As big and new as the world headquarters building is, Melaleuca’s 30-year history has been mostly one of renovating old places. The company started in the old S&H Green Stamp building on Broadway in downtown Idaho Falls, where it stayed until 1991. By that point, worldwide sales had brought things to the point where people were crammed in shoulder to shoulder.

When the Ziggy’s Hardware store on South Yellowstone became available, that’s where they moved, renovating it and, in time, a building next door, acquired from the city of Idaho Falls. Meanwhile, research and development was conducted in the old Union Pacific depot, attracting hardly anyone’s attention.

The move to the location near Exit 113 has been a long time in the making. The company opened its $11 million, 150,000-square-foot distribution center there in 2007, announcing that it had repaid in full the $2.5 million interest-free loan it had received from the Regional Development Alliance in 2002. The RDA administers money from the 1995 settlement between the State of Idaho, U.S. Navy and Department of Energy over spent fuel at the Idaho National Laboratory.

At the time of the shipping center’s opening VanderSloot said he had created three time the jobs it had promised the RDA in its proposal.

The announcement that Melaleuca was moving its world headquarters came in December 2012, a year after the company announced its worldwide sales had passed the $1 billion mark.

The complex has been a keystone in the development of infrastructure in the New Sweden area. In 2004, it announced it was contributing $1.3 million toward the Regional Wastewater Treatment Project, a joint effort between Shelley, Ammon, Bonneville and Bingham counties (another $500,000 came from the State of Idaho).

When it came to the actual construction of the $60 million world headquarters, Bateman-Hall of Idaho Falls was the general contractor. Thirty-two Idaho subcontractors were engaged in the project, including Johnson Brothers of Idaho Falls, which did all of the woodwork.

Melaleuca vice-president Damond Watkins speaking Monday in the meeting room at Melaleuca's new world headquarters.

Guns and Gear owner to speak at Advertising Federation luncheon

Ryan Later of Guns and Gear will be the next guest at the Idaho Falls Advertising Federation's “Lunch and Learn” series, March 19 at Dixie’s Diner.

Later’s life took a dramatic turn when he was robbed at gunpoint at a business where he was working. In addition to thinking about life, he decided he needed a firearm for his own protection. From there, the idea for Guns and Gear took shape.

He teamed up with Shane and Dixie Murphy in 2012, and in November 2014 they opened their $3 million indoor shooting range and gun shop.

Located on Crane Drive, Guns and Gear features tactical and static target lanes with the latest computer technology and an HVAC system compliant with EPA regulations. Overall, Later and the Murphys spent $2.8 million on the two-story, 15,000-square-foot building, which overlooks the Snake River Landing development, and $700,000 on equipment.

At the Ad Fed luncheon, Later will talk about how to develop a new business marketing plan that is effective and meets your company’s goals.

The luncheon will be from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Cost is $12 for members and $15 for non-members.