Read more about redevelopment efforts on the Southside – including the new Porsche North American headquarters near Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport – at www.MyAJC.com.
More than 1,000 call center employees will soon fill a space that once displayed jeans, sweaters and blazers.
Chime Solutions, an outsourced human resources company and staffing firm that also operates call centers, said Monday that it plans to open its newest communications office inside the former J.C. Penney at Southlake Mall. The company plans to hire more than 1,120 people in Morrow.
Call center jobs tend to be lower-paying and subject to frequent turnover. But for a region hungry for work, officials in Clayton and even Gov. Nathan Deal trumpeted the announcement as a major win for the state.
Clayton officials and Deal indicated that the pipeline of potential projects for south metro Atlanta is brimming, and that more were coming in the next few months.
“The activity we’ve seen already is nothing compared to what we’ll see in the next year,” said Grant Wainscott, Clayton’s head of economic development.
The past 10 years were hard on metro Atlanta, but they were particularly brutal to Clayton. The county was stung early by the foreclosure crisis, more than half of its homeowners owed more on their houses than they were worth and a school accreditation scandal clouded Clayton’s image.
Budget woes forced the county to shut down its bus system. The partial closure of the Army’s sprawling Fort Gillem also was a heavy blow.
Clayton’s unemployment rate has also been worse than the metro area average for years. In April, the jobless rate in Clayton was 8.3 percent, compared with 6.5 percent for metro Atlanta and 7 percent for the state.
Southlake Mall even went through a foreclosure and is now under control of a new owner.
Filling an anchor store with a call center is certainly a creative use. Some metro Atlanta malls have had to find alternative uses, from grocers to colleges, to fill vacancies.
But Clayton seems to be getting some of its mojo back.
The school system regained its accreditation, and Clayton commissioners could soon vote to put a referendum before voters to join MARTA and re-establish transit service.
A civilian authority is set to take control of most of Fort Gillem, with plans to convert it over several years into a teeming logistics, light manufacturing and office campus that would be home to thousands of workers.
Call centers are big business in Georgia, employing tens of thousands in the metro area. Recently, Verizon Wireless announced plans to hire about 200 at call centers in Milton and Alpharetta as part of a broader expansion of its business statewide.
Chime Solutions was founded in 2011 by Shelly Wilson, a co-founder with her husband, Mark Wilson, of Kennesaw-based call center giant Ryla Teleservices. They sold the firm a few years ago.
About 100 of the new Chime Solutions call center jobs announced Monday will be part-time gigs. The full-time jobs will range from entry-level to executive posts, and all will pay at least $10 an hour, the company said. State officials were mum on the specific incentives offered; Wainscott said the county offered incentives of about $4,000 per job.
Clayton Commission Chairman Jeff Turner said they were “quality jobs” that offered a new benchmark for the region, which has long struggled with higher unemployment.
“It’s a major turning point for corporate employment on the Southside,” Turner said. “These aren’t just any jobs, but jobs with livable wages and great benefits. Chime Solutions could have moved anywhere in Georgia, but they chose Clayton County.”
Fred Bryant, the head of the authority charged with redeveloping Fort Gillem, said the Chime Solutions announcement and the work his agency is doing will help revitalize the county’s job base.
Bryant’s agency and the city of Forest Park could take control of about half of Fort Gillem, or about 770 acres, as soon as this week.
Fort Gillem redevelopment officials also are working to finalize a deal for “Project Jasper,” a distribution facility they say could create 750 to 1,000 jobs. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported that the company is Kroger.
Bryant said his authority and the fort’s master developers will begin marketing the property as soon as control is transferred from the military. The new development and interest from companies, Bryant said, could bring new life to an area badly in need of growth and opportunity.
“This is all going to bring new, exciting jobs and younger people,” Bryant said. “This is going to help kick-start the economy for the rest of Clayton County.”
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