DUNEDIN — The Nielsen Co. this week announced plans to move more than 850 workers from its Dunedin call center to Oldsmar.
The sting of that news is intensified by the fact that Dunedin still hasn't healed from the company's decision several years ago to relocate its headquarters and more than a thousand jobs to Oldsmar.
For well over a year, Dunedin officials looked for other sites within the city, hoping to convince Nielsen to keep its call center operation in the city, according to Dunedin economic development director Bob Ironsmith.
But ultimately Nielsen decided its call center site, at 1659 Virginia St., didn't meet its needs for "expanded and contemporary facilities," said Matt Anchin, Nielsen's senior vice president of global communications.
Instead, the company decided it will relocate the center to available space at its global technology facility in Oldsmar in September, he said.
"This is a real hit to the landscape of our community," Dunedin Mayor Dave Eggers said Thursday.
The company's previous decision to relocate hurt residents, other businesses and the city's tax base.
"Now that this other center has decided to move there, it just exacerbates the issue," Eggers said. "And it leaves a bad taste in our mouths."
Nielsen's departure from Dunedin started around eight years ago, when the company began relocating its headquarters to Oldsmar. To do so, the company shifted 1,600 employees from several Pinellas locations to the new Oldsmar facility.
Nielsen's former operations center at 375 Patricia Ave. in Dunedin has been vacant since developer Grady Pridgen bought it in 2005.
Four years later, Wells Fargo took back the property after Pridgen's companies defaulted on a $9.9 million loan. Since then, a Safety Harbor development group has expressed interest in the site.
Ironsmith said something is "cooking" on the Patricia Avenue property. And he's "cautiously optimistic" about the 40,000-square-foot facility on Virginia Street, which is owned by Dimmit Car Leasing Inc.
"We're going to work very hard to get somebody that's a good user in there," Ironsmith said.
Meanwhile, Dunedin's loss is Oldsmar's gain.
Oldsmar Mayor Jim Ronecker said he was aware that Nielsen was trying to fill a vacant wing of its Oldsmar facility while searching for new digs for its Dunedin call center. And he learned of the company's final decision Wednesday night.
"Any time you can get 800 jobs in this economy," Ronecker said, "it's a wonderful, wonderful thing."
No comments:
Post a Comment