Cruise line could be one of biggest employers

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Cruise line could be one of biggest employers

By Sherri Buri McDonald - The Register-Guard

If Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. chooses Eugene-Springfield as home port for a West Coast customer service center, the facility immediately would rank among the metro area's largest call centers.

And if the Miami-based vacation cruise provider expands the center as anticipated, it could become one of Lane County's largest private-sector employers.

The prospect of several hundred new jobs initially, with the potential to grow to three or four times that, comes as welcome news to officials in a metro area that has suffered from big layoffs in the past several years.

"This would be a real shot in the arm," said Jack Roberts, executive director of the Lane Metro Partnership, a local economic development agency.

He said his office had been working with Royal Caribbean for the past few months, and that executives had visited Lane County a couple of times.

Sources familiar with the visits said Royal Caribbean has examined two large parcels on Chad Drive owned by Guard Publishing Co., publisher of The Register-Guard; a large parcel in Springfield's Gateway area owned by local businesswoman Carolyn Chambers; and Greenhill Technology Park on West 11th Avenue in west Eugene. The company is seeking about 20 acres on which to put a 230,000-square-foot center, plus 1,000 parking spaces, sources said. It's unclear whether the company would build and own the complex itself, or would seek a developer who would build it and lease it out.

Regardless of where in the Eugene-Springfield area such a large facility was proposed, it would be likely to face scrutiny over traffic impacts and other land use issues.

The only other city known to be competing for the facility is Spokane Valley, Wash., near Spokane.

Lane County is home to about 10 customer service call centers, including Symantec's 740-employee customer support center in Springfield.

Royal Caribbean probably is drawn to Eugene-Springfield by the same factors that have attracted a string of call centers: relatively low labor and other costs, good telecommunications, a quality work force and the availability of students and others willing to work part time and flexible hours.

Springfield has the added benefit of offering three to five years of property tax waivers on new facilities such as call centers. A 230,000-square-foot center might cost $18 million to build, and the tax waiver would save the company about $300,000 a year.

Eugene stopped offering tax breaks to new firms in 1997.

With reservation call centers in Miami and in Wichita, Kan., Royal Caribbean is looking at opening a third center in the Pacific time zone to serve customers on the West Coast and possibly in Asia, company spokesman Michael Sheehan said Thursday.

He declined to offer details. However, he said the Wichita call center could be used as "a yardstick of sorts." The Wichita site opened with 250 to 300 employees and grew to 640 employees within three years, he said.

Springfield Mayor Sid Leiken, who met with Royal Caribbean officials, said the West Coast facility could start out with 300 employees and grow to 1,200 or 1,400 employees.

By Lane County standards, a 230,000-square-foot facility is large. That's about the size of the office complex Symantec built 2 1/2 years ago in the Gateway area.

Other major local call centers include Stream (formerly Spectrum Contact Services), which has a 370-employee call center in downtown Eugene; AccuTel Inc., which handles customer bills for the financial services arm of General Motors Corp. at its 300-plus employee call center in Eugene; and Pentagon Federal Credit Union's Eugene call center has about 240 employees.

Royal Caribbean's call center would take reservations for Royal Caribbean International and Celebrity Cruises, Sheehan said. Jobs at the center would span "a whole spectrum, from entry-level to higher management," he said. Most of the workers would be customer service representatives. He offered no details about wages, but said that most workers, including customer service representatives, would be eligible for benefits, including discounts on cruises.