Downtown to get more than 1,000 high-tech jobs (Des Moines, Ankeny: lease, credit)

[capitalcityguy]

Great news out today!

Downtown to get more than 1,000 high-tech jobs
in major lease and construction deal for Des Moines
BY KENT DARR | Senior Staff Writer

Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., a multinational corporation that is based in New Jersey with a presence in Des Moines, plans to hire more than 1,000 people and occupy office space in Two Ruan Center as well as build two office building in the Gray's Landing development.

The company, one of the leading STEM recruiters in the United States, currently employs slightly more than 400 people in Des Moines who work out of two office buildings downtown.

According to an application for state of Iowa high-quality-jobs tax credits, the company will spend more than $14 million to lease 50,000 square feet of office space in Two Ruan Center and to lease two 54,000-square-foot built-to-suit office buildings. The costs also include expenses for remodeling and computer hardware

.

Business Record Daily AM 5.19.16

[atler8]

Indeed...it is a wonderful biz news development!
I'm trying to read between the lines to get an accurate picture of what's actually supposed to happen. Does it appear that another 1,000 jobs will be created on top of the present 400 plus positions the company now has in Des Moines or will this cause the employment level to rise to a total of 1,000 employees?

[capitalcityguy]

I was wondering that same thing atler.

It does say "plans to hire more than 1,000 people". That seems to me to be in addition to the 400.

[atler8]

Originally Posted by capitalcityguy

I was wondering that same thing atler.

It does say "plans to hire more than 1,000 people". That seems to me to be in addition to the 400.

I'm generally cautious about how I interpret new job numbers in proposed projects but that's exactly what I gathered from my first reading of the article so let's hope that is indeed the case.
1,000 new tech jobs going to downtown Des Moines is quite a feather in the cap for the city as well as for the metro.
Here in Atlanta, there has been a flurry of job announcements in the last 2 to 3 years that are bringing new &/or relocated tech jobs into the city center, especially in Midtown where I work. The big draw there is for the availability of mass transit, the adjacent Georgia Tech campus & the growing urban amenities.
Some of the largest announced relocations to the area have been headed into the city FROM suburban Atlanta which is a reversal of a decades long trend of jobs draining out to the suburbs.
Suburban office park environments in the Des Moines western suburbs as well as in Ankeny have taken a lot of the new jobs generated in the metro in the last couple of decades. Perhaps this particular selection of downtown is a sign that Des Moines could experience some circumstances similar to the intown wave of new &/or relocated jobs I am seeing in Atlanta.