Northwest Industrial Services LLC, an Airway Heights industrial-waste recycling company, has bought 149 acres of vacant land on the West Plains that potentially could accommodate new business ventures for the company.


The land is located just east of Fairchild Air Force Base and south of McFarlane Road. John Condon, managing partner of Northwest Industrial, says the company doesnt have immediate plans for the property, which it bought from James P. and Ruth Lucas, of Spokane, but is considering starting a couple of new divisions that could go there.


In addition to eyeing new lines of business, Northwest Industrial, which operates a division called American On-Site Services that rents out construction job-site equipment also could move its current operations there eventually, he says. The company, which employs about 15 people, currently has a 12-acre site at the northwest corner of Hayford Road and McFarlane Road.


It has about 1,000 square feet of office space there and stores its equipment on the surrounding land.


One other type of business that Northwest Industrial has eyed for the recently purchased property is a gravel-mining operation, Condon says. The property is zoned for such a use, and there are some good sand and gravel deposits, he says. His partner in Northwest Industrial, Jack Gillingham, owns a separate venture, called Gillingham Corp., which is a sand and gravel contractor.


Condon says that in another potential venture, Northwest Industrial has eyed starting Iron Horse Railroad Services, a railroad construction and maintenance operation. As well as building track and doing track-maintenance projects, Iron Horse would buy and sell used railroad equipment and materials and could use a rail line that runs through the property.


Condon and six brothers sold a railroad contracting company 2 1/2 years ago, and he says Northwest Industrial would have to wait until a non-compete clause that he signed in that transaction expires later this year before starting a railroad-related division.


The Lucases sons, Mark Lucas and Tracy Lucas, both of Kiemle & Hagood Co., handled the property sale.