WATERFRONT

PHEAA closing call center in Chester

CHESTER » In a year of expansion by tenant Power Home Remodeling and renewed attention on the waterfront as a redevelopment master plan is currently being formulated, one business announced in

2019 that it is on its way out of the Wharf at Rivertown office complex. The Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency elected to exercise an early exit option on its lease this August, with a scheduled exit date of December

2020.

The PHEAA call center, opened in late 2012, handles calls related to Fedloan Servicing – federal student loans administered by PHEAA under contract from the U.S.

Department of Education. “Our goal is to minimize any impact to employees. They have the option to transfer to one of our other call center facilities between now and December 2020,” said PHEAA Director of Public and Media Relations Keith New. “Any employees that were to leave between now and then – that call volume can be absorbed by one of our other facilities,” he said.

Along with offices in Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, the agency also has a call center in Tampa, Fla., according to New. As of Dec. 2, 77 of PHEAA’s 2,714 employees are located in the Chester call center. A call center in Lower Allen Township, Cumberland County, is slated for closure at the end of 2019.

“We should be rightsized. We have to be cognizant of the market and the state of our contracts,” New said. “(Chester) primarily deals with our federal contract and that can change from year to year. There’s always some uncertainty regarding the federal contract, which is our largest.”

“We are not a for-profit company but we use a phrase ‘we don’t have shareholders but we have stakeholders,’” New said, noting all earnings above operating income are turned back into Pennsylvania state grant program for need-based student aid. “It really is in our best interest… to make sure we’re maintaining our costs so we can maximize that dividend back to the commonwealth.