(The following story by Stacie Hamel appeared on the Omaha World-Herald website on March 1.)
OMAHA, Neb. — As Union Pacific prepares to move into its new $260 million headquarters in May, about 200 employees have been told there isn’t room for them in the 19-story building, at least for now.
The employees work in leased office space in downtown Omaha and originally were among the approximately 4,100 employees set to move into the building under construction at 14th and Douglas Streets, a spokeswoman said.
The 200 are part of crew management systems and timekeeping departments that schedule train crews and track work time.
In mid-January, the company announced that it would move 300 information technology jobs to Omaha it had planned to leave in St. Louis, bringing to 1,038 the total number of jobs to come to Omaha.
Dick Davidson, U.P. chairman and chief executive, said at the January press conference that final plans for the new headquarters made clear there was room for the IT workers, too.
Spokeswoman Kathryn Blackwell said more recently that room was made in the building for the IT workers by assigning the crew management and timekeeping employees elsewhere.
“We were able to find the room in the building,” she said last week, “. . . partly by not moving everybody in.”
The 200 workers won’t be using space in the company’s current headquarters across Dodge Street from the new 1.2 million-square-foot building, spokesman John Bromley said.
“There will be no U.P. employees left in this building,” Bromley said.
Company officials decided it made more sense to have the IT workers in the headquarters rather than crew management and timekeeping functions, Blackwell said.
“These people have certain roles and responsibilities for the corporation that are essentially handled together as a group,” she said. “They don’t have very much interaction with the corporation, where IT as a group would.”
No decision has been made on a permanent location for the 200 workers, she said. They can stay where they are at least until the leases end.
“They might be moved into the new headquarters at a later date. They might be moved to the Harriman (Dispatch Center) or another choice, but they are not scheduled for the May-to-August move-in,” Blackwell said. “There are other options we’re not ready to discuss.”
The company is to turn over its 12-story, 575,000-square-foot former headquarters to the city, the last step in a development deal in which U.P. received a square block of land from the city for the new building.
The Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce acquired the site and turned it over to the city, which demolished structures on it and prepared the land for construction at a cost of $5.94 million.
City officials have not announced plans for the old headquarters, though possibilities mentioned have included a day-care center, a downtown school, offices, condominiums, storage or retail uses.
City Planning Director Bob Peters said no possibilities have been ruled out. The feasibility of various uses has not been studied because there’s still time before the city takes over the building, Peters said.
The city also is building a $17.5 million parking garage, including a $2.4 million underground passageway to the new headquarters, a block away, for use by U.P. employees.
U.P. employees will move into the new headquarters over several months beginning in May, starting with the lower floors and moving up as they are completed. Interior finish work now is being done on the eighth floor, according to Holder Construction Co.
Move dates for each department won’t be set until early April, Blackwell said.
Before U.P.’s 1996 merger with Southern Pacific, crew management and timekeeping employees worked in the downtown Harriman Dispatch Center, where dispatchers coordinate train movement.
The workers were moved to the Woodmen Tower, 1700 Farnam St., and the former People’s Natural Gas Building, 1815 Capitol Ave., to make room for employees moved from St. Louis after the merger.
U.P.’s space at the Woodmen Tower is leased until 2005. “That’s why this is not a huge issue in terms of where they are going to be located,” Blackwell said.
U.P. will vacate leased space in seven other buildings, and human resources staff in Woodmen Tower also will move to the headquarters, she said. The seven spaces:
Brandeis Building, 210 S. 16th St., nearly 700 IT and accounting employees.
Parkfair, 201 S. 10th St., about 130 IT, training and human resources workers.
Woodmen Park , 1700 Farnam St., about 110 real estate workers.
Farm Credit Building, 206 S. 19th St., about 50 contract services workers
Central Park Tower, 1509 Farnam St., about 50 audit staff members and television studio.
Landmark Building, 1299 Farnam St., 50 employees for the railroad’s northern region.
11171 Mill Valley Road, 45 sales employees.