Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories Inc. plans to relocate its Spokane Valley offices to a newly purchased building that it says will better accommodate its growth.

The big Pullman-based company, which invents, designs, and builds digital products and systems that protect power grids, bought a 28,000-square-foot building at 13518 E. Indiana that ITT Technical Institute formerly had owned and occupied. 

It says it plans to move its Spokane Valley operations there by late summer or early fall from leased space in the Spokane Business & Industrial Park, at 3808 N. Sullivan Road, following some minor cleaning and updates to the building on Indiana.

Joey Nestegard, the company’s Pullman-based vice president of finance, says the new location will provide the company more room to expand its Valley operations, which have increased from six to 60 employees in the past few years. 

“Our employees are super excited about this investment,” says Nestegard. “The new building can hold up to 120 people, giving us some much-needed extra space.” 

Nestegard says the building will feature several conference rooms, which will be ideal for holding the company’s traditional Friday Lunches.

 “Friday Lunches are broadcast live from SEL’s headquarters in Pullman to each of its locations worldwide, and often include introductions of new employees along with other company news,” he says. 

Nestegard says while employees in the company’s Valley location work in various divisions throughout the company, more than half work for its rapidly expanding research-and-development team. 

An employee-owned company, SEL has manufactured products in the U.S. since 1984, opening its Spokane Valley branch in 2012.

Nestegard says SEL serves a variety of industries, counting most major utilities and many industrial power consumers among its customers. 

“We have about 4,900 employees companywide, with 60 U.S. locations and about 50 others internationally,” he says. 

The company’s website currently lists 118 job openings, most of which are in the Pullman-Lewiston area.

Last August, company CEO Luis D’Acosta told the Journal that SEL was in the midst of a significant growth period, and is on track to top $1 billion in annual sales in the coming years. 

At that time, D’Acosta said the company also had just broken ground on two new buildings at its 92-acre Pullman campus, which he said it plans to use to expand its workforce there from 2,300 employees to just over 3,000 over the next few years.

One building, to be named Z-Beta, will be SEL’s second research-and-development building at the Pullman campus, will have lab and office space for 300 engineers.

The other building will be dedicated to manufacturing industrial control panels and enclosures for SEL components, and is estimated to provide 550 manufacturing jobs.

Both buildings are planned to have roughly 100,000 square feet of space, and are scheduled to be completed in June.

SEL designed the buildings in-house and is acting as its own contractor. Local subcontractors include Steel Stud Structures Inc. and Cobra BEC Inc., both of Spokane.

The company also recently expanded offices in Boise and Charlotte N.C., as well as adding several international branches, including offices in Brazil, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia. 

SEL currently serves customers in 148 countries worldwide.