Duluth company adding jobs

Assurant Specialty Property became the latest company to expand in Gwinnett County, announcing plans to add 75 new jobs and a second service center in Duluth.

The newly acquired 70,000 facility will house the company's growing auto collateral protection insurance business and vehicle title tracking operations. Approximately 150 jobs, 75 new to Gwinnett, will move into the new center during the first quarter of 2009. It will have the capacity to accommodate up to 650 employees.

"Our forecasts for the businesses supported by the Duluth center are for continued growth," said Gary Turner, senior vice president for operations and customer service. "The Breckinridge facility will enable us to accommodate that growth in a more orderly fashion."

Jim Sykes of Assurant said the corporation had several reasons to lease the additional space at 2975 Breckinridge Boulevard, starting with outgrowing its other site in Duluth. The existing site has been in operation since 1999.

"We have created an additional business over there," he said.

A collateral protection insurance business does the same sort of loan tracking for auto lenders as it does for mortgage lenders.

"We have a couple of clients already, and we expect that business to continue to grow," Sykes said.

Assurant has taken that business out of the existing service center to move it one mile by car and across I-85 to the new center.

Another business related to auto lending will move into the new Duluth service center from the company's Cobb County headquarters.

For years we've been tracking and storing vehicle titles, again for auto lenders," he said. "We filled up the building that we are in here in Cobb."

So that operation moves to meet the needs for space and as part of some organizational change.

"It makes sense to put these two functions together," Sykes said.

With the existing Duluth service center growing from 600 to more than 1,100 employees, finding places to fit the cars for all of these workers has been a problem.

With 700 parking spaces at the Breckinridge site and only 150 jobs to start, there's plenty of parking nearby. A shuttle bus will take employees from the new center's lot the one mile to the existing center, Sykes said.

The new center will be located in a former call center. Assurant Specialty Property has signed a seven-year lease for the 70,000 square foot facility with landlord Magnolia Norcross LLC.

Sykes said Duluth is close to the resources the company supports, making it an ideal location. The new service center site was picked because it was the right type of facility available for lease, and was close to the current facility.

"It helped us fix a couple of problems. One, really sort of the overcrowding we've had there, and also that parking issue," he said.

Assurant has two employment sites – Cobb and Duluth – that have a combined workforce of approximately 2,200 employees, working for Assurant Solutions and Assurant Specialty Property.

"Assurant Specialty Property's expansion adds tremendous value to our over-arching goal for creating jobs in Gwinnett," said Lauren Salas, Corporate Headquarter and Regional Office Business Development manager for Gwinnett Chamber Economic Development. "We consider Assurant a great asset to the community and will continue to support their growth into the future."
- www.gwinnettherald.com

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