Terasen Goes Local For Call Centre Construction

Wednesday, July 21, 2010 10:12 AM

Design Plans for Prince George Contact Centre image provided by Terasen

Prince George, B.C. - Three local firms have been given the nod to complete $4-million dollars in renovations to the building that will house a call centre for Terasen Gas.

The contracts to renovate the former ACS Building on 2nd Avenue have been awarded to IDL Projects Inc., Northway Glass Inc., and Prince Sheet Metal & Heating. The upgrades will begin this week and are expected to take four months to complete.

Terasen Spokesperson, Jan Marston, says, "Response from the local community has been outstanding, and we were glad to have received 11 of the 14 bids from companies located in the area." (Marston shown at left at July 8th design unveiling)

Renovations include substantial upgrades to the building envelope, and the facility’s mechanical, heating and cooling systems. On July 8, Terasen Gas unveiled its design and renovation plans for the contact centre, which follow the principles and guidelines of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) by focusing on recycled and recyclable materials, where feasible, using natural light, and retaining existing elements, such as doors, frames and walls to reduce landfill.

"This project is yet another success for our downtown," said Mayor Dan Rogers, City of Prince George. "Construction upgrades to the contact centre will enhance the heart of our city and displays the confidence Terasen Gas has in the future of Prince George."

The contact centre renovation is part of Terasen’s move to an in-house customer care model, with two new contact centres, and a new customer information and billing system. The centre in Prince George is home to the first of two B.C.-based contact centres, and will create more than 100 new jobs. A second centre, planned for the Lower Mainland, will create approximately 200 additional jobs to support both contact centre and billing operations.

Terasen says recruitment and hiring of a local workforce for both contact centres will begin in June 2011, with the new centres and services expected to be in place by January 2012.

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Posted on Wednesday, July 21, 2010 10:12 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: gus on July 21 2010 11:28 AM

I guess since it is Terasen they would want to make sure that they are not housed in an energy glutton.

Good for them!!!

Okay, waiting for the people to come in here and write that it is our gas utility dollars that they are using ... LOL

Posted by: gus on July 21 2010 11:29 AM

Oops... forgot that there are also those who are of the opinion that this is all a BCLiberals plot ...... :-)

Posted by: alex1212 on July 21 2010 4:17 PM

well id rather have my neighbour disconnect my services in june as iam on disabilty and my bill was 212.00but i paid all winter on time but fell behind 200 anyway like i say a job is a job

Posted by: Chester on July 21 2010 6:49 PM

Great news! More construction jobs and more call center jobs. We should have quite a few experienced people already who know how to work in the call centre.

Posted by: Palopu on July 21 2010 10:05 PM

All the previous call centre jobs are now gone as far as I know.

Terasen was sold to Kinder Morgan sometime ago. Kinder spun of the pipeline portion of the business , and then sold the gas portion back to some Canadian Company back East.

In effect all they are doing is bringing back the call centres and billing operations that were farmed out when they were owned by Kinder.

Considering that they had a large number of people working in Prince George a number of years ago, it would be interesting to see what the net gain in jobs is, and what the salary range is for those jobs that used to be here and the jobs that are now coming back.

I suspect that the new jobs will be paying a lot less.

In any event a job is a job is a job. Some people will benefit from the venture, so what the hell, go for it.

Posted by: Retired on July 22 2010 10:08 AM

More good news but what will this call center produce? Provide a few minimum wage jobs for awhile and then close. And then there is IDL getting all these big contracts. Yeah what the hell go for it.
Cheers