LeasX, a young leasing company based in Spokane, has leased a 70,000-square-foot building at 627 E. Sprague Ave. and plans to start a telemarketing subsidiary there that it says could employ more than 200 people within two years.


That subsidiary, Angular Communications Inc., will occupy the entire building, which formerly housed a U.S. Bancorp data-processing center and student-loan center. The building includes 40,000 square feet of office space on the ground floor and 30,000 square feet of underground parking.


LeasX President Lou Bories says the company signed a 10-year lease with the buildings owner, WAM Enterprises Inc., of Spokane.


LeasX leases a variety of goodsAnything that can be liened, Bories says, such as heavy construction equipment and restaurant equipmentto businesses nationwide. Only about 1 percent of the companys business is conducted with other Spokane concerns, Bories says. A small group of Spokane investors founded the company in August 1997.


The transaction involving the East Sprague building comes seven months after WAM Enterprises bought the building from American Real Estate Partners LP, of New York. WAM Vice President Bruce Miller says American Real Estate Partners decided to sell the building after U.S. Bancorp announced that it would not renew its lease. U.S. Bancorp downsized the operations that had been based there and moved to smaller quarters at 5221 E. Third in September.


Now that WAM has leased the building, it will try to sell it, Miller says.


Preparing to launch its new company, LeasX hired Garco Construction, of Spokane, to make about $700,000 worth of improvements to the interior of the building. That work should be completed next month, Bories says. LeasX also invested about $4 million in equipment for the call center, he says, and recruited a team of five veteran telemarketing managers to get it up and running.


This will be the Ferrari of call centers, Bories asserts.


Angular Communications expects to hire its first 30 employees25 telemarket-ers and five support staffat the beginning of January. Bories says the company hopes to fill the building with staff members quickly and predicts hiring 100 telemarketers within six months and 200 callers by mid-2000.


Sales staff at LeasX, which is headquartered at 518 S. Maple and employs eight workers, will increase proportionately, Bories says.


The bigger Angular gets, the bigger everybody will get, he says, referring to affiliated business enterprises.


The creation of Angular Communications will allow LeasX to control costs, Bories says. LeasX has contracted with outside call centers to generate leads since its inception, but Bories says it can operate Angular Communications for about $10,000 less monthly than it costs to pay an outside telemarketing firm.


Bories says Angular Communications will grow in two ways during the next five years. LeasX will create more subsidiaries for Angular Communications to sell products for, and Angular Communications will recruit outside telemarketing contracts.


After establishing Angular Communications, LeasX intends to create subsidiaries to offer other financial services, such as credit cards, insurance policies, and mortgages.


Bories says the additional subsidiaries arent likely to be formed until early 2000, but the primary sales-generating vehicle for future ventures will be Angular Communications.


The company also plans to wait until 2000 to look outside the company for telemarketing contracts, Bories says. Angular Communications will generate sales leads exclusively for LeasX through the first year, Bories says. Through that inaugural year, about half of the East Sprague building will be vacant, Bories says.


Miller says the East Sprague building was constructed in the 1950s and originally housed International Harvester, a farm-equipment retailer. Old National Bank, which later was bought by U.S. Bancorp, moved its data processing center into the building in 1972.