GlobeSt.com UPDATE: Siemens Incentives Package for Call Center Grows to $1.8 Mil

ORLANDO-Siemens Westinghouse Corp., one of the area’s largest employers with a work force of 5,000, is getting a financial sweetener in its plans to build a $40 million, 225,000-sf call center in Quadrangle Office Park in east Orlando.

Orange County is giving the locally based division of German-based Siemens AG $367,000 worth of tax breaks over six years on a promise the company will create 637 new jobs paying an average $43,475.The state is kicking in with a $1.4 million incentives package.

For Siemens, the deal means it will be getting back 85% of the $430,000 in property taxes it would pay over six years. For the county, Siemens’ projection that only 19 of the 637 jobs will pay an average $98,000 is disappointing. The county had hoped for a much larger number of high-paying jobs.

GlobeSt.com couldn’t reach Siemens officials at publication deadline to learn a construction timetable for the call center. But county staffers tell GlobeSt.com on condition of anonymity the project is expected to break ground in first quarter 2002 and be completed by first quarter 2003.

Siemens hasn’t yet announced a developer, general contractor or an architect for the venture, tentatively called Siemens Shared Services. The company is one of metro Orlando’s largest office and industrial tenants. When completed, the call center will bring Siemens’ total leased space to 855,000 sf.

The call center will be built next to Siemens’ two existing 225,000-sf buildings near the University of Central Florida’s main campus. The company also leases 80,000 sf at the nearby Central Florida Research Park. A Siemens telecom-switch plant in suburban Lake Mary, FL takes up 100,000 sf.

The estimated total hard construction cost of the five structures is $170 million or about $200 per sf, construction industry estimators familiar with comparable projects tell GlobeSt.com on condition of anonymity.