By Mark Scheer<br><a href="mailto:scheerm@gnnewspaper.com">E-mail Mark</a>
As many as 150 call center jobs could be on their way to The Summit Mall in the Town of Wheatfield.
NuComm International U.S., Inc., a division of Transcom Canada Worldwide, has reached an agreement with the owners of the Williams Road shopping center to lease 6,000-square-foot of empty space for use as the company’s first customer service operation in New York state.
The company and the mall’s owner, Oberlin Plaza One, LLC, received tentative approvals Wednesday from the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency for a tax incentive plan that will help the project move forward. The agency has scheduled a public hearing on the tax incentive package for Oct. 7.
NuCommm is a third-party provider of technical support and customer service for various companies in the U.S. and Canada, including the cable company Comcast.
The company currently maintains call centers in Ontario and Louisiana. It also employs home-based agents throughout North America.
Lauren Kassen, a representative from NuComm’s human resources department, said the company will initially offer around 100 full-time positions at its Wheatfield location and plans to add 50 more jobs within two years. Kassen said the jobs will pay about $12 an hour with benefits and part-time positions will be available as well. Kassen said more than 500 people have already responded to the company’s local help wanted ads. If all goes as planned, Kassen said the new location could open by year’s end.
“We have five times as many applications as we need to hire and we haven’t even opened yet,” she said.
NCIDA board members granted tentative approval to a 15-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement on the 6,000-square-foot portion of the mall as well as sales tax abatement on construction materials, furniture and fixtures purchased by the mall’s owner, Oberlin Plaza One, LLC of North Carolina.
Before granting approval for the project, some board members expressed reservations about supporting such a project in light of the mass layoffs that have often been associated with other area call centers. The board indicated that it would likely include an annual review of the company’s local employment numbers to make sure NuComm continues to maintain the level of workforce it promised as part of the IDA’s proposed tax incentive package.
Kassen said her company would not object to such an arrangement and said she’s confident the Wheatfield call center will not only survive as planned, but will ultimately require additional room for future expansion.
“If they give me a condition, I will meet it,” she said. “I’m not concerned about that.”
