Lease Deal Rings Up 230 New Jobs

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, CA-A company involved in the credit-card industry has signed a lease to open a new call center here that will bring more than 200 jobs to the area.

Terms of the $1.6-million, three-year lease will provide San Diego-based ARS National Services Inc. with 12,600 sf at 10801 Sixth St. The building is inside California Tech Center, a business complex owned by Larkspur-based F&F Simon Ranch Tech LLC.

ARS National Services specializes in credit card recovery accounts. As many as 230 people will work at the new call center when in hits full speed next year, says Jason Howerton, the company’s COO.

The center will handle recovery calls for more than 10 large creditors, Howerton adds. Several employees at the center will earn more than $50,000 a year in salary and commissions, based on the amount of money they are able to collect from delinquent borrowers.

The building stands on the site of what was once a missile factory operated by General Dynamics. Owner F&F Rancho Tech recently completed an $8-million renovation of the facility.

The decision by ARS National to lease space at the project marks an important victory for the Inland Empire Economic Partnership, a business-oriented group that worked hard to land ARS National as a tenant.

The partnership projects that the new call center will pump about $6 million annually into the local economy. ARS had considered a number of possible venues for its project, including sites in the neighboring cities of San Bernardino and Riverside as well as in San Diego and Phoenix.

Natalie Bazarevitsch, the CB Richard Ellis SVP who brokered the ARS National deal, notes that Mercury Insurance Services LLC also recently signed an 18-month agreement to take about 15,000 sf in the same complex. The insurer is building a 100,000-sf headquarters on nearby Foothill Boulevard, but its new HQ won’t be ready for occupancy until 2003.