200 tech jobs coming to W. Lafayette; Center at Purdue Research Park will support EDS' Medicaid business

Technology services giant EDS will open a 200-worker tech center in West Lafayette to support its growing business of helping states process Medicaid claims.

The center will start immediately in temporary quarters at Purdue Research Park, but it will take two years to fully staff permanent office space for EDS that will be built in the park, EDS said.

The Purdue Research Foundation will create a joint venture with Holladay Properties of South Bend to build a $10.7 million office building, and EDS will occupy 45,000 square feet of the 78,000-square-foot facility. It will open a year from now.

The job creation announcement Thursday by EDS and Gov. Mitch Daniels marks the latest investment by Texas-based EDS in Indiana. EDS already employs 1,000 people in the state, and earlier this year it was awarded a $209 million contract to upgrade over the next six years the information and claims-processing system that runs Indiana's Medicaid health insurance system for the poor.

EDS will receive up to $300,000 in state training grants for the jobs created at the tech center. The city of West Lafayette will provide $1.5 million in additional economic incentives to the company.

EDS picked West Lafayette for the center because it is familiar with Indiana, likes the state's business climate and wanted to tap a labor market outside the Indianapolis area for the new jobs, said Andy McCann, an EDS vice president.

"We wanted to reach out to another area," he said. "It made a lot of sense to be here."

Most of the new EDS jobs will be business analysts and software developers and engineers, he said.

"These are tech-based jobs, the type of jobs we want Purdue Research Park to be known for," said Joseph B. Hornett, senior vice president of the park.

The average wage of workers at the Purdue park is $52,000 a year, and the EDS positions will pay comparably, said Cynthia Sequin, a research foundation spokeswoman.

EDS doesn't have a tech center to support its growing Medicaid business. McCann said putting the center in Indiana was not a demand the state made when awarding EDS the Medicaid contract.

In a second state-supported job-creation announcement Thursday, White Lodging Services said it will spend $4 million to build a new headquarters in Merrillville and hire 100 more employees by 2012. White Lodging, which develops and runs hotels in 14 states, leases space in the Northwestern Indiana city for its 116-employee headquarters.

The state offered up to $1.5 million in tax credits and $92,000 in training grants for the new jobs. The town of Merrillville offered the company a property tax abatement.

White Lodging is a development partner in the $425 million JW Marriott hotel complex that will be built in Indianapolis to serve the expanding Indiana Convention Center.

Call Star reporter Jeff Swiatek at (317) 444-6483.