By Kimberly S. Johnson
Denver Post Staff Writer
Colorado Springs – More than 1,700 new jobs were created in Colorado Springs this year, and more are expected, said city economic development officials.
The number includes the official announcement Tuesday by Juniper Banks of plans to bring a call center and 450 jobs to the area.
Another 450 jobs are set to be announced in the coming weeks, said John A. Cassiani, executive vice president of marketing for the Greater Colorado Springs Economic Development Corp. Although he would not provide names of specific companies, Cassiani said the job creation would be a result of an existing company’s expansion and new operations moving to the Springs.
“We had a lot of sites looking in our direction,” he said. “We had 14 companies” creating 2,038 jobs last year.
He said that four out of five companies that have visited the city have brought jobs in the past two years.
Juniper Banks’ call center is expected to open by January 1. As the U.S. credit card operations arm of Barclays PLC, the company offers affinity cards for more than 40 companies, financial institutions and nonprofits. The British banking giant purchased Juniper in 2000 and will rename the bank under the Barclays brand within six weeks.
It took three months to woo the bank to the Springs. The city beat out Denver, San Antonio, and Albuquerque after Barclays officials visited three times. Part of the courtship included job training and enterprise zone incentives. Barclays will be reimbursed up to $800 each to train up to 600 new employees, said Brian Vogt, head of the state’s Office for Economic Development and International Trade.
Vogt on Friday told a state legislative committee that 600 new jobs would be created by a company he did not name.
On Tuesday, Vogt said the 600-job estimate was based on early talks with Juniper. The location for the call center – 69,000 square feet at 5725 Mark Dabling Blvd. – has the capacity to hold only 450 workers, he said.
The office building the bank will occupy is also in an state enterprise zone, qualifying Barclays for a $500 off its state income tax for each new employee. The enterprise zone designation also gives the bank a $200 per employee tax credit to offset health costs for two years.
Over the next five years, Barclays’ operations in the Springs will have an estimated impact of $80 million, according to the city’s economic development corporation.
Staff writer Kimberly S. Johnson can be reached at 303-820-1088 or kjohnson@denverpost.com.
