Shriners Hosptial in Spokane is hoping to expand to help more children with funding they're still waiting for approval on but confident it will come through.

In 2009 the local Shriners Hospital was on a list of possible hospitals to be closed. Now they are looking at some major expansion.

After being put on the short list for cuts, the hospital reconfigured its staff and is now listed as one of the most efficient of the Shiners hospitals. It is hoping to get $15 million to help expand its building to accommodate more out-patients.

"Over 60-percent of our patients are actually out-patient surgeries, so part of the reconstruction would be taking part of our fifth floor administration area and creating an out-patient surgery and procedure room," Kristin Monasmith with Shriners Hospital said.

The hospital's family center would be torn down, moved and expanded to care for more families in need of extended stays.. The hospital has preliminary approval from Shiners International but not the final go ahead to start construction..

The hospital won't know if it's approved for the funding until early April.

Big changes are happening on the third floor at Spokane's City Hall.

Friday morning just after 11:00, Mayor David Condon and several other city officials unveiled the brand new remodeled Development Services Center.

Five different departments consolidated to streamline the building permit application process. The mayor says the new center is a one stop process with improved customer service.

Condon said that over the past year, permit applications have risen 50%, and permit application responses have shortened.

Jan Quintrall works on the third floor at Business and Development Services.

She said that when she asked what customers wanted out of the department, she was expecting their answers to be speed. What they said surprised her. "Predictability, consistency and reliability," those are traits developers in Spokane are looking for in the Development Services Center she said.

Quintrall said that it took a customer 4 to 6 weeks to get a permit in Liberty Lake. That same permit took only an hour to get at Spokane's City Hall.

The Spokane restaurant owner arrested in a federal drug sweep Thursday morning may have a connection to recent shootings in downtown Spokane.

Sally Blakely Guthrie, who owns the three Flamin' Joes locations in Spokane, appeared in federal court for a bail hearing Thursday afternoon. That hearing was continued because federal prosecutors say they need more time to process evidence collected in the massive raid.

That raid, which included 41 arrests in�two states and 43 locations, alleges the co-defendants were involved in a massive Oxycontin ring spreading from Los Angeles to Spokane.

Court documents are still sealed because not all of those searches have been complete. In court, though, Magistrate Cynthia Imbrogno recalled allegations made in a 535-page document. Imbrogno said she recalled Guthrie being accused of money laundering and of renting vehicles for her co-conspirators to drive, so that investigators wouldn't know who was driving those vehicles.

Imbrogno said the "most concerning" allegation to her was that federal prosecutors say Guthrie lied to investigators about those vehicles being involved in recent shootings in downtown Spokane.