A heads up, the results of downtown Lansing's most recent market study will be released this Thursday at the Cooley Law Building starting at 6 PM. It'll be interesting to see how much the downtown population has grown among other things.
I don't know, but I'd guess it'd eventually be put online, and I'm sure the LSJ will do some midday update on the main points of it.
Speaking of midday updates, the LSJ reported that Jackson National Life is moving 150 jobs from its Denver office to its former headquarters building in south Lansing. More jobs = good news.
Regarding JNL's job transfers... I think it's good news that the jobs are coming to Lansing, but definitely not good news that JNL as a company cannot sustain their Denver call center.
I think calling the Denver facility unsustainable is a stretch. Jackson is keeping 650 people in Denver who probably have higher paid jobs in sales, marketing and investment advising services.
Just something to keep in mind: The Denver metropolitan statistical area has a median household income of $58,039, according to 2007 Census data. The Lansing-East Lansing MSA has a median household income of $49,169. Nashville is $49,979.
So a company like Jackson can pay less for the same number of workers in Lansing or Nashville than Denver. In Lansing, they have a building that they own with lots of empty space that already houses customer service workers - a definite advantage over Nashville. That's a pretty easy business decision. I don't mean to denigrate these jobs in any way (I'm frankly jealous of their benefit package) - but they're not "high skill" jobs that require an advanced degree. So why pay a premium to have these customer service jobs in Denver when you can find lots of people in Lansing who will do the job just as well or better for less money?
The intangible in all of this is what kind of goodwill does Jackson create with state and city officials - who regulate their business and can offer some pretty substantial tax incentives in the future - by making a pretty easy business decision? How much is that worth?
Jwswrites, your census data is from 2007, so 150 people x $8870/year difference=$1,330,500 savings/year - why would JNL not want to save this money for the past couple of years?
Why would they want to lay off 150 people (or however many are not transferring) in Denver and hire new people in Lansing now? Loss of institutional knowledge aside, there's certainly a loss for call center operations to close a place that's two hours behind their other call center.
I probably shouldn't have said "as a company cannot sustain their call center" - I should have said "is now consolidating their call center operations".
Why would it be bad that they are consolidating their call center operations? Regardless of how you word it you seem to be implying or insinuating that Jackson National is going down the crapper. Why doesn't it make sense that they'd be pulling back to their base (Lansing), right now?
The city has solid plans to start construction end of March on beautifying the river front by AF and the City Market spending $3.2 million. I kinda wonder how that's going to work...why start beautifying the area when AF construction is under way and the new city market construction is going to start...wouldn't you do the beautificaiton work after the major construction?
Beautification has almost always been started along with the adjacent street/infrastructure reconstruction projects. You do beautification, afterwords, and you risk damaging the newly reconstruction street/infrastructure, also you lose a larger work site meaning you've got to be more careful, and when its a street reconstruction it means you have to disrupt auto and pedestrian traffic, twice. The city tries to coordinate beautification with their street reconstruction schedule whenever possible and it makes since.
BTW, anyone notice that the Michigan Credit Union League that moved into 101 South Washington Building has a rather large sign of their name posted along the eastern parapet which is lit at night? It's quite bright and can be seen from quite a ways up Michigan Avenue. I just noticed it, last night.
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Speaking of midday updates, the LSJ reported that Jackson National Life is moving 150 jobs from its Denver office to its former headquarters building in south Lansing. More jobs = good news.
Another part of the article that sounded good was that their former headquarters building is now full except for 1 floor.
Just something to keep in mind: The Denver metropolitan statistical area has a median household income of $58,039, according to 2007 Census data. The Lansing-East Lansing MSA has a median household income of $49,169. Nashville is $49,979.
So a company like Jackson can pay less for the same number of workers in Lansing or Nashville than Denver. In Lansing, they have a building that they own with lots of empty space that already houses customer service workers - a definite advantage over Nashville. That's a pretty easy business decision. I don't mean to denigrate these jobs in any way (I'm frankly jealous of their benefit package) - but they're not "high skill" jobs that require an advanced degree. So why pay a premium to have these customer service jobs in Denver when you can find lots of people in Lansing who will do the job just as well or better for less money?
The intangible in all of this is what kind of goodwill does Jackson create with state and city officials - who regulate their business and can offer some pretty substantial tax incentives in the future - by making a pretty easy business decision? How much is that worth?
Why would they want to lay off 150 people (or however many are not transferring) in Denver and hire new people in Lansing now? Loss of institutional knowledge aside, there's certainly a loss for call center operations to close a place that's two hours behind their other call center.
I probably shouldn't have said "as a company cannot sustain their call center" - I should have said "is now consolidating their call center operations".
http://capitalgainsmedia.com/devnews/water0309.aspx
BTW, anyone notice that the Michigan Credit Union League that moved into 101 South Washington Building has a rather large sign of their name posted along the eastern parapet which is lit at night? It's quite bright and can be seen from quite a ways up Michigan Avenue. I just noticed it, last night.