BUSINESS:
Minn. company to open LV office, creating hundreds of jobs by 2013
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28 July 2011
11:21 a.m.
Updated
28 July 2011 2:13 p.m.
Sunset Pilot Plaza
Ameriprise Financial, a Minneapolis-based financial services company, plans to open a Western hub that will employ 300 people in a call center by 2013.
The company has purchased Sunset Pilot Plaza, a 100,000-square-foot office complex at 280 Pilot Road in the Hughes Airport Center business park for its Las Vegas office, which will have space for as many as 900 employees. Ameriprise bought the complex from MIG Real Estate, a California-based real estate investment company.
Bridget Sperl, Ameriprise’s vice president of service delivery, said plans are to open the office in April and ramp up to 300 employees by 2013.
Recruitment will start by the end of the year, and few employees will move from Minneapolis, she said. Pay rates haven’t been determined.
The office will serve as a call center to handle financial transactions and other needs of clients and a technology center employing computer programmers, Sperl said.
“We have been looking for an opportunity to have a Western site to take advantage of the time zone, the business continuity and different kind of weather patterns,” Sperl said. “We know other calls centers have done well. We’re impressed with Las Vegas for those reasons as well as the workforce there. We are very impressed with UNLV and the fact that so many people get their degree and stay there.”
Ameriprise, which has 10,000 financial advisers across the country, has done well the last two to three years, and company officials thought this was the best time to add a Western presence, Sperl said.
The headquarters is Minneapolis. The executive team is based in New York, and the mutual fund team is based in Boston, she said.
“This is about growing the organization,” Sperl said.
Ameriprise Financial paid $14.5 million for the three-story office building.
MIG, which is based in Newport Beach, Calif., paid $8.6 million for the property in October 2010. The property was built in 2008 within the 3.3 million-square-foot Hughes Airport Center business park.
Sunset Pilot Plaza was MIG’s first purchase in Las Vegas, and the company has acquired other commercial properties since. This is the first sale it has announced.
MIG CEO Greg Merage said Sunset Pilot Plaza is among only a few Class A office buildings in the valley offering 100,000 square feet of contiguous space.
“This was instrumental in the attraction of a public company with significant space requirements and has allowed us to complete a sale of this property well in advance of our contemplated timeline,” Merage said in a statement.
MIG was represented by Darren Lemmon of CB Richard Ellis in Las Vegas. Ameriprise Financial was represented by Charles Snyder of CBRE in Minneapolis and Randy Broadhead of CBRE in Las Vegas, according to MIG.
Ameriprise requires its call center applicants to have a two-year certificate or four-year college degree, Sperl said. They are even required to pass a test.
“They have to know a lot of information about financial services,” Sperl said. “It’s a good job they can grow in and get promoted. It’s a good opportunity for those who want to be in the financial services business.”
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Discussion 3 comments
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More call center jobs, just in time for our recent college graduates.
Yeah!!! Another call center!!! Way to go Summer Hollingsworth!
These are just the type of jobs no taxes and a lousy education get you.
There is always going to be a need for "worker" type jobs. No, they are not going to pay big wages but for those that do not go on with their schooling it is a job.
300 more jobs is 300 more then we had. Glad to see the building sell and a good company coming to help feel the need for the lower end job market.
This is a win win for the area. This is a very reputable financial organization and my prediction is that they expand down the road.
It's not "win win;" I'll give it a lukewarm, single 'win.' It's true: call center jobs are loser jobs. And to boot, I don't like this kind of firm -- they hustle financial "products," just trying to separate people from their money, in order to score commissions. In other words, this is NOT the kind of company that creates anything of value, be it tangible, or intangible. Wall Street has taught us just how unproductive and, frankly, destructive, the "investment" industry is.
HOWEVER, from our local economy's standpoint, yes, these are 300 jobs we didn't have before. Yes, there will be trickle-down effects (though not so much, as again, these are low-paying loser jobs: I doubt the schmoes here will smell many of those commissions). But mostly, people in Vegas need jobs -- any jobs -- that aren't tied to construction or gaming. This is a start.
I'll take it.
What I find most curious is there interest in the UNLV graduates who 'receive their degree and stay in this town'..... so are we to assume they would like to hire college graduates with a degree to work in their CALL CENTER and if so , for how much more than minimum wage + commission? Curious indeed.
Maybe not the greatest job in the world but better than nothing for alot of folks right now. Anyways at least it's a better story than the McDonald's hiring fest that was going on a few months back.
As a person who worked for Ameriprise in Minneapolis (for 15 years), I can tell you their wages are above average. The types of people they will be hiring and the jobs they are offering will not be for brainless people, it's not just a "worker" or "loser" job. In most cases, anyone dealing with a customer will handle financial transactions, therefore have to be licensed with a minimum of the Series 6 license, with a possibility of additional licensing of the 7, 66 and a state insurance license. I started out in the call center and had many opportunities to advance. It was a great company, with excellent benefits. In a town that NEEDS to diversify the workforce, everyone should be jumping up and down that they are coming to town.
azsk8fan,
I, too, found the reference to UNLV and its graduation rates curious. I always thought them to be bad. So I just now looked them up: As expected, they're a joke. As is the school, for that matter. I think the Ameriprise VP's quote is unintentionally deceptive, in that she only meant that UNLV graduates (the ones who actually DO graduate) tend to stay here. I think that's wrong, too. But if not, it would make sense. I mean, if you don't have ties to this town already, who in his or her right mind would come from elsewhere just to go to UNLV? A person can get a crappy non-education in one's hometown just as easily, but without paying out-of-state tuition.
I am updating the story but here is the latest about the UNLV reference.
Ameriprise requires its call center applicants to have a two-year certificate or four-year college degree, Sperl said. They are even required to pass a test.
"They have to know a lot of information about financial services," Sperl said. "It's a good job they can grow in and get promoted. It's a good opportunity for those who want to be in the financial services business."
Buck Wargo,
Thank you. The rewrite removes the ambiguity about Ms. Sperl's remarks.