Waste Management Moves its Northwest Regional Office to Kirkland

Waste Management Inc., which contracts with Kirkland to provide garbage and recycling collection, has moved its Northwest regional offices and 100 employees to a location at 4th Avenue downtown.

The company, which last spring negotiated a new seven-year contract with the city, decided Kirkland was a better fit than its former location in Woodinville.

“It really made sense to be in Kirkland,” Robin Freedman, company spokeswoman, said Monday. “It’s a great community and we are really aligned as a partner with Kirkland.”

Billing, sales, communications and administrative employees are based in the new offices at 720 4th Ave., near the .

The company made the move in June, but did not announce it publicly until recently, when it scheduled a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Sept. 29. The ribbon-cutting, however, has been postponed because construction work near the office will be occuring then, Freedman said, and will be rescheduled.

Ellen Miller-Wolfe, Kirkland's economic development director, said the move won't be a huge factor economically for Kirkland, but will generate some increased tax revenue and is a positive development.

"Those are people who will be spending money in Kirkland, and it's a great company we work with," she said.

Dean Kattler, a Kirkland resident and Waste Management area vice president, said in a statement: “The city of Kirkland is an important customer for Waste Management and our goals are completely aligned. In partnership with the city of Kirkland, we have worked very hard to achieve aggressive, world-class sustainability goals that make Kirkland a great place to live and work.”

The company’s new contract with Kirkland includes collection services to some 31,000 new residents in northern neighborhoods annexed on June 1, as well as restored garbage collection at 22 parks and 46 new high-tech trash compactors and recycling receptacles downtown. The contract also gives Waste Management a 9.7 increase from the city, and could mean a 3 percent rate increase for residents on Jan. 1, depending on how the City Council sets rates some time this fall.

A national company headquartered in Houston, Waste Management employs some 2,300 people in the Northwest and British Columbia.