Cranley: GE jobs 'awesome news' for region

• Region will host one of five global hubs for finance%2C IT
• Company will build new offices in SW Ohio%3B site TBD
• The Banks%2C Mason%2C Norwood on short list

General Electric Co. will bring 1,400 jobs to Greater Cincinnati for a new U.S. Global Operations Center, in offices it expects to have built by 2017.

The "shared services" hub will be one of five worldwide, where the engine, appliance and technology company will host departments such as finance and information technology, JobsOhio CEO John Minor said Thursday in a statement.

As The Enquirer first reported Wednesday, GE is considering several sites for its new offices. Frontrunners include Mason, Oakley and The Banks development on Cincinnati's riverfront. GE hopes to break ground this summer.

Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley hailed the announcement as "awesome news for our region," but declined to confirm that The Banks and Oakley are frontrunners. Cranley, a Democrat, credited Republican Gov. John Kasich with luring the new GE hub to Ohio.

"My first choice is anywhere in the city of Cincinnati," Cranley said of the location for the new offices. "I don't play favorites inside the city. I've told them we will help them if they go to The Banks, Oakley, Price Hill, wherever."

Still, Cranley noted: "Everyone recognizes that the city has been greatly revitalized in recent years with a 24/7 Downtown, and I believe that is attractive to a lot of people."

City officials have been working on the deal for the past month. Tax incentives for the move have been discussed "hypothetically," Cranley said, with nothing put in writing yet. He declined to give details.

GE officials said the company's strong ties to Ohio and especially to Greater Cincinnati played a big role in the decision to locate here and gave the region an edge in the competition with other states, including Texas, for the new shared services center.

"Ohio was the most attractive," said Joe Allen, general manager of GE's U.S. operations center. "The relationship with the state, and the talent we've had from our employee base, is a big benefit."

Allen confirmed Mason, The Banks and Oakley all are "in the running" for the center and said a choice will be made within 90 days. Until the new office is complete in 2017, up to 650 GE employees will move into temporary quarters in the Atrium buildings on Fourth Street in downtown Cincinnati.

Most of the new employees will relocate from elsewhere in the United States, but about 300 new jobs also will be created, Allen said. Most will work in human resources, accounting, information technology, procurement and other "back of the business" support operations.

Allen said cost, parking and the attractiveness of the development all would be part of the decision on where to locate the new center. Once built, the center could house as many as 2,000 employees, he said.

JobsOhio, Kasich's privatized economic development group, helped recruit the GE hub to Southwest Ohio over several other locations around the U.S., Minor said. GE already has 15,000 employees in Ohio -- more than in any other state -- with the largest concentration of those employees in Southwest Ohio. GE Aviation, for instance, has thousands of employees in Evendale and other locations throughout the region.

"The company knows the Greater Cincinnati area is an excellent place to be because of its long-time, successful GE Aviation operation and we're thrilled with the confidence this move shows in the people of Ohio," Kasich said in a statement. "It's great to see more jobs created by JobsOhio's efforts."

GE is seeking as much as 400,000 square feet of office space for the expansion here, sources said.

Competition among the possible sites for the new GE office will likely be fierce. A project involving so many jobs would be a boon to any of the communities on the list.

"GE jobs are incredibly sought after. They are higher-paying jobs and better for the economy," Hamilton County Commissioner Greg Hartmann said Wednesday.

The Banks project has been looking for a signature corporate tenant for years and could anchor the next phase of the project to a new office building.

Oakley is home to several new economic development projects, most notably Oakley Station, which includes a Kroger, a movie theater, about 300 apartments and other stores. Mason, in Warren County, has been one of the region's fastest-growing suburbs for two decades and already is home to many corporate offices.

The company may move some employees to downtown Cincinnati early next year while it waits for its new offices to be built at the new location, sources said.

GE is based in Fairfield, Conn., and is one of the world's largest companies, with more than 300,000 employees and sales of more than $147 billion.

"GE knows that our region is an ideal place to live and work, and
we're excited to again be part of its plans for the future," said Matt Davis, interim executive director of Regional Economic Development Initiative Cincinnati.

The company produces aircraft engines, household appliances and high-tech equipment for power generation, water processing and medical imaging. It also provides financial services to businesses and consumers.

Forbes last year ranked GE fourth on its "Global 2000" list of top companies and seventh on its list of the world's most valuable brands.

GE's CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, grew up in Greater Cincinnati and is a Finneytown High School graduate.

Bowdeya Tweh, Sharon Coolidge and Jason Williams contributed