Verizon plans Lincoln call center More than 800 workers will serve customers from a $33 million building planned at the NU Technology Park

LINCOLN -- Verizon Wireless, a company that only this year expanded cellular service to Lincoln, announced Monday that it will build a major customer call center here.

Beginning in late 2007, more than 800 Lincoln employees will take customer service calls from a five-state region. The jobs will pay a minimum of $26,000 a year, plus incentives and other benefits.

Verizon announced Monday that it will begin construction this week of a $33 million, 112,800-square-foot building at the University of Nebraska Technology Park in the northwest part of the city.

The center is a plum for Lincoln and for Nebraska, said Gov. Dave Heineman, who attended a groundbreaking with about 50 state and local officials.

"When this call center opens, the impacts will likely ripple across Lincoln and Nebraska," Heineman said.

Heineman credited Verizon's attraction to Lincoln to a strong business climate, good schools, a skilled work force and a state jobs incentive program adopted in 2005 by the Nebraska Legislature.

In terms of jobs created, the Verizon Wireless project is the second-largest qualifier under the Nebraska Advantage Act, which offers a variety of tax refunds and credits to companies that invest and create jobs in Nebraska.

Only the 2,000 jobs projected for a PayPal Inc. expansion in La Vista is greater.

State officials said details of the tax incentives still were being worked out. They declined to estimate the value.

The project also qualifies for tax-increment financing, which allows tax revenue from added property value to be used to pay the cost of infrastructure improvements.

Lincoln met all of the needs of the call center, said Nancy B. Clark, president of Verizon Wireless's Great Plains Region.

"Lincoln and the state of Nebraska have succeeded in creating an inviting business climate," Clark said.

Heineman and Clark said educational opportunities in Lincoln, including the university system and community college, were key factors.

Company officials declined to identify other communities that had been considered in a lengthy process to pick a location.

Lincoln Mayor Colleen Seng said she first talked with Verizon officials about the call center last April.

"This was the hardest secret I've ever had to keep," she said.

Clark said Verizon Wireless, a longtime cellular service provider in Omaha, is expanding its service in Nebraska. The company has spent $28.9 million in 2006 on network improvements in the state, partly to expand into Lincoln and Fremont.

The company will increase the number of cell transmission sites in Lincoln by 70 percent by the end of the year, she said.

Verizon Wireless currently has 140 employees in Nebraska.

"We believe we have the makings of a great relationship with the state of Nebraska," Clark said.

Verizon, which now has 57 million wireless customers nationwide, has been rapidly adding customers. The company added 2 million retail customers in the third quarter.

The company announced a plan in 2001 to build call centers across the country. In the last two years, it has opened centers in Albuquerque, N.M.; Hanover, Md.; Charleston, S.C.; Wilmington, N.C.; and Chandler, Ariz.

In addition, call centers were expanded in Columbia, S.C.; Atlanta; Southfield, Mich.; and Dublin, Ohio.

The Lincoln center will serve a region that includes Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa.

Verizon Wireless, headquartered in Basking Ridge, N.J., is a joint venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone, both publicly traded companies. The company has 60,000 employees nationwide and annual revenue of $32.3 billion.