Telecom center to bring jobs

Hub may receive incentives package

A telecommunications corporate headquarters that could bring 375 jobs to Fort Lauderdale will be considered for a state and local incentives package of $1.9 million.

The company’s name has not been disclosed, but it is dubbed “Project Blythe” during negotiations. The company already employs 300 poeople in the county, according to city documents.

The new jobs would pay an average annual wage of $51,266, and the company would agree to retain existing jobs.

Fort Lauderdale would contribute $375,000 to the incentives package and the state $1.5 million. The Fort Lauderdale Commission will conside the package Tuesday.

Under the proposed agreement, the company would invest about $27 million in the purchase of a new office in the Cypress Creek area, according to city documents.

Telecom companies including Verizon, Comcast and AT&T — which all have headquarters outside the state — have been hiring hundreds of workers in South Florida over the past year.

Last year, New Jerseybased Verizon Wireless was seeking to hire 250 people in South Florida for sales, customer service and tech support roles. Philadelphiabased Comcast operates a call center in Miramar and has about 1,500 employees in Broward, and Dallasbased AT&T has about 14,700 employees in Florida, including those at its call center in Sunrise.

“There are no plans to move AT&T’s corporate headquarters from Dallas to Fort Lauderdale,” said spokeswoman Kelly Starling. Comcast spokeswoman Mindy Kramer said she had no details about expan-