Avista Corp. says its working on the possible sale of part of its majority-owned Avista Communications subsidiary to that units CEO and part-owner, Greg Green, and other minority shareholders.


Avista Communications spokeswoman Annette Miller says that if the sale is finalized, Green and others would acquire various customer accounts of the Spokane-based telecommunications company in Spokane; Billings, Mont.; and Cody, Wyo. Miller declines to comment further on the possible sale, citing a non-disclosure agreement.


Green couldnt immediately be reached for comment.


Avista Communications was formed in early 1999, after Avista Corp. bought a 51 percent ownership interest in One Eighty Communications, which Green had founded here in 1998. Avista Communications took on One Eightys operations and has since grown from just a handful of employees to about 175, 110 of whom work in the Spokane-Coeur dAlene area. Its revenues doubled last year to about $5.9 million.


The companys fiber-optic network offers various telecommunications services in nearly 20 markets. Avista Communications also provides dial-tone service to business customers in the Spokane area, and digital-subscriber line (DSL) Internet capability in Spokane, Coeur dAlene, and Billings.


The company has yet to post a profit. It suffered a $9.4 million loss last year and a $2.6 million loss in 1999.


Earlier this year, Green said he believed Avista Communications would begin covering its operating expenses within the next 18 months and shortly thereafter become profitable. He also expected the companys growth to be slower than that of the previous two years because of the slowing economy.


Avista Communications, which has sought to offer telecommunication services primarily to business customers in communities with populations under 500,000, initially saw itself as strictly a competitive local exchange carrier that would compete with other carriers to provide local dial-tone services. As technology evolved and voice and data have continued to converge, however, the company expanded its vision to include a host of telecommunications services, Green said in a Journal of Business interview in February.


Avista Communications targeted smaller markets because it believed they largely had been ignored by bigger telecommunications companies, allowing the Spokane company to build its own high-speed infrastructure in those locations.


One way Avista Communications was looking to grow was by acquiring smaller telecommunications companies or Internet service providers (ISPs). The company has said such acquisitions would have allowed the company to penetrate a market quickly with both voice and data solutions.


Avista Communications entered the Coeur dAlene market through an acquisition about a year ago. Through its purchase of Digital Marketing Inc., a Coeur dAlene-based ISP, the Avista unit gained nearly 1,500 customers, then enhanced the services it was offering in that market by adding high-speed dedicated Internet access and local dial-tone service.


Most of Avista Communications 110 employees in Spokane are housed in a total of 40,000 square feet of office space in four downtown buildings: the Levy Building, the 1889 Building, the U.S. Bank Building, and the Seehorn Building at Steam Plant Square.