Agilent Technologies Inc., the Santa Clara, Calif.-based scientific-instrument maker, says it has decided to move its Liberty Lake operations into leased space and out of a much larger complex that it owns here after having reduced its Spokane-area work force over a number of years.

The company has leased a two-story office building with 27,000 square feet of floor space at 23321 E. Knox, in Liberty Lake, and has put up for sale its 400,000square-foot complex at 24001 E. Mission, says Fred Krassowski, Agilent's human resources manager here. Agilent occupies only a fraction of the complex today, and most of it is vacant, he says.

Agilent is a spinoff of Palo Alto, Calif.-based electronics manufacturing giant Hewlett-Packard Co., which owned the Mission Avenue complex originally. The two companies had operated a printed circuit assembly plant there at different times.

Agilent's work force here peaked at 1,200 employees in 2001 and has gone through a series of reductions since then. Krassowski says the company has 110 employees here now, and that will drop to about 100 employees after the move.

Agilent likely will move its Liberty Lake operations, at which it designs equipment used to test wireless communications devices, sometime during the first quarter of 2010, Krassowski ays.

"It depends on how long it takes to outfit the building to meet our needs," he says.

He declines to disclose the cost of tenant improvements that are under way at the Knox Avenue site. The seven-year-old structure that Agilent has leased formerly housed Orange, Calif.-based Ameriquest Mortgage Co.

Mike Livingston, of Kiemle & Hagood Co., is the listing agent for the Mission property.