A former home design store at Massillon Road and Interstate 77 in Green is getting a new life as an office building with a doctor’s clinic, fitness center and cafe for employees.
Bath Twp.-based InfoCision Management Corp. today is dedicating its new 52,000-square-foot facility at 3656 Massillon Road. The building will house up to 600 employees – doubling the number of InfoCision employees in Green, including 300 new hires the company is seeking.
Employees began moving into the space in the last month as the company invested $4 million in renovations.
“Our goal is to have a prominent space,” said InfoCision Chief of Staff Steve Brubaker. “Now you can’t miss us when you get on the highway.”
Infocision’s operations in Green include two call centers – Christian fund-raising and political fund-raising, which moved from the other location – and two commercial units, including business-to-business and the media group, which is business-to-consumer services, such as cable companies.
The building was the former Wagler Homes Store, which served as the design center for the former Wagler Homes housing and remodeling units. Phil Wagler now runs Wagler Enterprises, which still develops land for residential homes but doesn’t build homes anymore. The store closed in early 2009 because of the economy.
InfoCision is renting to own the Wagler Homes store property and Wagler next month will close on the purchase of InfoCision’s former 12,000-square-foot location on nearby Forest Lake Drive. Wagler said he agreed to purchase the InfoCision building to help the company move to his building. He plans to resell the Forest Lake Drive building. Terms of the lease to own and the purchase of InfoCision’s building were not released.
Wagler said having InfoCision take over his building that he built several years ago but has sat vacant since 2009 is bittersweet.
“It was painful to have the economy do what it did. In light of what happened, this is a very good thing. We’re glad it’s meeting the needs of InfoCision,” said Wagler.
The deal also included assistance from the city of Green.
The Green City Council last August approved an economic development agreement to split the income tax revenue from any new InfoCision jobs with the company.
The company will get a rebate of half of the 2 percent in city income tax revenue received from the city from any new InfoCision hires in Green for seven years, said Mayor Dick Norton. He said that is a fairly common agreement to attract new jobs.
In exchange, InfoCision, which has been in Green since 1987, must stay in the city for 14 years. The company also agreed to bring at least 207 jobs to the community, but will be surpassing that goal, said Brubaker. About 100 people have been hired this year and the company is looking for another 300 in a variety of roles, including communicators, account managers and sales people and people with management experience, he said.
The original projections for withholding taxes for 207 new employees was $543,300 during the grant’s life, which meant $271,650 would have been given back to InfoCision. The city will not have new numbers until the new year, but would give a rebate again based on any new jobs beginning this year, a city official said.
Norton said the move is good for InfoCision and Green.
“It’s great to backfill a building that was a former retail store,” he said. “It’s a great company and growing.”
InfoCision will still have a second building in Green that houses about 60 support staff employees. The company has about 1,000 employees at its Bath Township campus and more than 4,000 employees companywide in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia with 35 call centers.
A year ago, InfoCision said it was planning on hiring 700 employees within a year companywide, with 200 in Summit County. The company has exceeded that goal and expects to hire across the board this year, said Brubaker. He said he did not have job growth estimates for the entire company readily available.
The larger Green location now allows InfoCision to bring some of its employee perks at some of its other locations, including an on-site doctor’s clinic and fitness facility for employees. The Green location also has the company’s first full-scale restaurant called Cafe5 for employees.
Betty Lin-Fisher can be reached at 330-996-3724 or blinfisher@thebeaconjournal.com
