On December 21, Washington’s Lottery opened its new Department of Imagination store at NorthTown Mall in Spokane. Sargenti Architects and Blake Jarrett & Co. designed the store.
“It has been a long and arduous effort, but our team was up to the task,” explained Ron Smerer, Sales and Marketing Director, Washington’s Lottery. “We have had many different teams involved in this project, including Blake Jarrett, our ad agency Wunderman Thompson, Carmanah Signs and IGT.”
This is the state’s first lottery retail store. It also will function as a regional lottery office. The design is streamlined. There are DOI scratch tables and a scratch display.
“It looks awesome,” said Smerer, who is embarrassed to boast about this outcome. “It is already outperforming our expectations and we hope that continues.”
Shoppers are also greeted with floor-to-ceiling video walls. “We also have an interactive wall, where players can come in and interact with our scratch games, have the wall pick numbers to play and just have a little fun!” said Smerer.
The store can even talk to players via the technology and provide beneficiary information. “We also have a backlit messaging wall which allows us to easily change what we would like to message out to the public,” said Smerer.
Winners are treated to VIP treatment. “We added a winners room, where winners of large prizes can come in a sit and relax while their winnings are being verified and checks printed. It is very COOL!” said Smerer.
The DOI store all began about two and a half years ago when Les Denison (Spokane Regional Manager) and Smerer went looking for a new location to move the Spokane office. “Little did we realize how long this would take on the amazing finished product we now have,” said Smerer.
The Department of Imagination project team included: Crystal Fischer (project lead), Randy Warick, Ken Knutzen, Lance Anderson, Dan Devoe, Shar Hawley, Debbie Robinson, and Ron Smerer (project sponsor). The Spokane team has been very involved and includes Les Denison, Debra Buckner, Adrianne Perry, Lori Lucky, Theresa Simpson, Tom Cram and Judy Triplett.