MEDIA RELEASES

TAMPA - Insurance giant MetLife will add more employees and more elbow room as it moves from Tampa's West Shore business district to an office park in New Tampa.

The company says it will hire 150 workers during the next few months, bringing its total head count to 1,700 employees in the Tampa Bay area. It also plans to add a 115,000-square-foot, four-story office building at Highwoods Preserve by early next year, complementing the two 150,000-square-foot office buildings it bought last year in the office park.

MetLife was one of the first Wall Street companies to move operations to the Tampa Bay area: It opened its first service center here in 1969, hiring 225 people. The move to Highwoods Preserve and the new hires reflect the company's commitment to the Tampa Bay area, spokesman John Calagna said.

"We've been in Tampa for quite a while," he said. "It's a terrific place to do business - it's got a terrific work force, a great environment."

Most MetLife employees in Tampa work in a two-story building that opened in the 1970s. The new buildings in Highwoods Preserve will give those workers state-of-the-art technology and better amenities, Calagna said.

Job seekers can find information, including salary information, about the new MetLife jobs at the company's Web site, www.metlife.com, Calagna said. Most of the new jobs will be in MetLife's finance department, but some will be administrative positions. He said the average annual salary is expected to be about $50,000. MetLife is moving most of its local workers to Highwoods Preserve, but some will remain in West Shore at One Metro Center, the 11-story office tower at 4010 W. Boy Scout Blvd.

MetLife's neighbors at Highwoods Preserve include Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., Syniverse Technologies and T-Mobile. The office park was originally built as the corporate headquarters for Intermedia Communications.

WorldCom inherited the lease when it bought Intermedia in 2001, several months before WorldCom's accounting scandal forced the company to seek bankruptcy protection. With the bankruptcy court's permission, WorldCom broke leases with landlords across the country in 2002, including its lease with Highwoods.

MetLife officials said in June that it would buy two buildings, encompassing a combined 300,000 square feet of office space, at Highwoods Preserve for $24.5 million.

MetLife's third building will cost $19.7 million, including a parking deck. The building will be owned by Highwoods Properties, the Raleigh, N.C.-based real estate investment trust that developed Highwoods Preserve, and leased to MetLife. Lease terms were not disclosed.

 
 
 
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