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Tennessee Awards Incentives for T-Mobile Customer Service Center in Chattanooga

Posted on: Thursday, 18 August 2005, 15:00 CDT

Aug. 18--T-Mobile USA's customer service center project in Chattanooga is to receive $750,000 in state training funds and a six-year property tax break, officials said Wednesday.

Also, the wireless carrier garnered a TVA economic development grant as another incentive to place a call center in the city.

The cell phone operator plans to hire nearly 800 workers to staff the facility at State Highway 153 and Lee Highway. Work on the building could start this summer with the center taking its first call in about a year, officials said.

Tom Sugrue, T-Mobile's vice president of governmental affairs, said the jobs will involve taking calls from customers and others with inquiries about service.

While a lot of call center jobs have shifted overseas, he said T-Mobile USA handles about 95 percent of its customer service work within the country.

"We look at customer service as a differentiating factor," Mr. Sugrue said.

Joe Barker, a Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development assistant commissioner, said the $750,000 will be used by the company for employee training.

He said T-Mobile isn't receiving infrastructure funds from the state. Mr. Barker said the state offers projects up to $750,000 for training and infrastructure, and T-Mobile wanted to use all the money on its work force.

Trevor Hamilton, the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce's vice president for economic development, said city and county mayors pledged to provide six-year tax breaks on real and personal property such as equipment. The tax break is to start at 100 percent and then slide to 50 percent in the sixth year, he said.

Heidi Smith, TVA's general manager of marketing development and field operations, said the power utility's grant is based on number of jobs, investment, power use and wages.

The grant is designed to reduce the company's cost for locating in TVA's seven-state region, she said. Ms. Smith declined to give the dollar amount the T-Mobile project is receiving.

Tom Edd Wilson, the Chamber's chief executive, said T-Mobile did its homework in evaluating Chattanooga. He said economic development officials first started wooing the company in July 2004.

"What encourages me is that this shows us we can compete for a national company and project," Mr. Wilson said.

Mayor Ron Littlefield said Chattanooga's efforts to recruit industry and jobs are paying off.

"This is a real win," he said.

U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., said he's encouraged the call center jobs are coming to Chattanooga and not going to India.

"Those jobs can be effective in the U.S.," he said.

Tom Kale of Charter Real Estate Co., which worked with Texas-based Staubach Co. to find the T-Mobile site, said they looked at three or four locations. But the Highway 153-Lee Highway intersection was always the first choice, he said.

Former Mayor Bob Corker, who worked on the project before he left office earlier this year, said there was a lot of competition for T-Mobile.

Chattanooga was picked after a national search and beat out 15 finalists, said John Birrer, T-Mobile's vice president of customer service operations.

T-MOBILE PROJECT

--Location: Northeast corner of Lee Highway and Highway 153

--Size: 77,000 square feet

--Employees: Nearly 800

--Cost: $16 million

--Start-up: summer 2006

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DT, DTE,

Source: Chattanooga Times/Free Press

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