Waste Management of Spokane plans to move its administrative offices from Mead to a building in the Spokane Valley in the wake of an acquisition by its parent company of the assets of Western Refuse Co., of Airway Heights.


Waste Management will move into offices at 11720 E. First formerly occupied by Valley Garbage Service Inc., of Spokane. In addition to buying the assets of Western Refuse this past July, Waste Management of Spokanes parent company, giant Houston-based Waste Management Inc., bought the assets of Valley Garbage, a 58-year-old company here, from E. Dewey Strauss last year.


The Mead, Valley, and Airway Heights operations all are solid-waste collectors.


Waste Management Inc., the Houston concern, plans to sell three buildings and eight acres of land it owns at 2215 E. Brooklyn Avenue in Mead, as Waste Management of Spokane moves from that property to its new site in the Valley, says Jeff Daub, Waste Management of Spokanes district manager.


Thanks to the parent companys acquisition of the assets of Western Refuse, Daub now oversees 300 employees and 10 garbage-handling operations in Eastern Washington and North Idaho.


In addition to the three operations here, the others are located in Kennewick, Ellensburg, Wenatchee, and Yakima, Wash., and in Sandpoint and Coeur dAlene, Idaho. Waste Management of Spokane is an arm of Washington Waste Hauling & Recycling Inc., of Seattle, which is owned by Waste Management Inc.


Waste Management Inc. bought the assets of Western Refuse from John W. Gillingham, Daub says. That transaction included a 17,000-square-foot building and three acres of land at 11320 W. McFarlane Road. That operation employs 18 people, he says.


By Jan. 1, Waste Management plans to move its 11 administrative staff members from its Mead location to the former Valley Garbage site and to divide its about 28 Mead-based drivers between the Valley location and the West Plains location that Western Refuse had occupied, Daub says.


The company currently employs an additional five administrative staff members and roughly 60 drivers at the Valley site, he says. Waste Management Inc. also bought last year the assets of Olsons Sanitation Services, of Addy, Wash., in Stevens County, Daub says. In all, its Spokane-based subsidiary employs about 138 people now.


To accommodate the consolidated businesses administrative functions, such as billing and accounting, at its new headquarters in the Valley, Waste Management of Spokane plans to remodel a 4,000-square-foot building and do other work there, Daub says.


Panco Construction Inc., of Spokane, will be the general contractor for the about $500,000 project. Micken & Associates, also of Spokane, designed it.


In addition to Waste Management of Spokane, Waste Management Inc. also owns Wheelabrator Spokane Inc., a separately run subsidiary that operates Spokanes waste-to-energy plant, Daub says. That operation employs 36 people.


Waste Management Inc. is a publicly traded company with about $13 billion in assets.