(The Associated Press distributed the following article by Joe Ruff on June 2.)
OMAHA, Neb. — Railroad crossing arms rose and train bells clanged as Union Pacific Corp., owner of the nation’s largest railroad, officially opened its $260 million headquarters Wednesday.
Gov. Mike Johanns joined Union Pacific chairman and chief executive Dick Davidson for a tour of the 19-story building, located downtown and across the street from the old headquarters.
Built to bring together workers from several downtown sites and offices in St. Louis, the headquarters houses 4,100 employees. It features a glass-fronted atrium that floods every floor with natural light and it has a training center and a public dining room that seats 600. The building also has a credit union and a fitness center.
“When we broke ground here about two and a half years ago, we envisioned a building that would offer bright, open and airy office space for our employees,” Davidson said. “At the same time, we wanted Union Pacific Center to emerge as a beacon of downtown redevelopment. I think we’ve hit a home run on every point.”
Employees have been moving into the building the last few weeks, even as indoor construction work continues. All employees are expected to be in the new building by the end of September.
The building features glass and brushed stainless steel walls with climate controls that allow employees to adjust temperatures in each work area.
Some controversy accompanied the project, which is likely to qualify for millions of dollars in state income, sales and property tax breaks under a pair of investment incentive laws. Companies qualify when they make certain investments in money and job creation.
Critics of the laws say benefits from the incentives are not worth the cost and they are granted at the expense of funding for education and other initiatives.
Nebraskans for Peace, which is spearheading a petition drive to repeal one of the incentives laws, known as LB775, criticized Union Pacific in particular for saying the tax incentives were instrumental in building the headquarters and moving more than 1,000 jobs from St. Louis to Omaha.
“The Union Pacific project is the poster child for what is wrong with LB775 and the Invest Nebraska Act,” Nebraskans for Peace state coordinator Tim Rinne said. “We are subsidizing the shift of jobs from St. Louis to Omaha. No new jobs are being created in the railroad industry.”
Union Pacific officials counter that the jobs brought to Nebraska will reap years of payroll and other benefits for the state. Without the tax breaks, the headquarters may not have been placed in Omaha, they said.
Union Pacific was founded in Omaha in the 1800s. It has nearly 8,000 employees in Nebraska and nearly 50,000 workers across its 33,000 miles of track in the western two-thirds of the country.