Itron sells headquarters to developers

Itron Inc. has agreed to sell its headquarters building along North Sullivan Road for about $9.2 million to Gaylon Patterson and Jack Branagh, real estate investors from California.

Itron announced plans last year to buy the Telect building in Liberty Lake for about $20 million. The company will move into its new headquarters next month.

Patterson and Branagh own multiple office buildings and other developments in Spokane County. They have signed a purchase agreement, although the sale is not yet final, said Craig Soehren of real estate firm Kiemle & Hagood Co., who represented Itron in the transaction.The investors expect to find a new tenant before year’s end. Servatron, a contract manufacturing spinoff of Itron that leases space in the building, will remain there as part of the pending sales agreement.

Itron is among Spokane’s largest technology companies, with about 450 local employees. The publicly traded firm has outgrown the headquarters it built 23 years ago.

Itron designs and manufactures automated utility metering and data-collection software.

It has been growing. In 2005, the company reported sales of $552.7 million, up from $316.9 million two years earlier after swallowing rival firm Schlumberger Electricity Metering.