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MetLife moving to New Tampa office park

By KRIS HUNDLEY
Published June 11, 2005

MetLife's Tampa operations are moving across town.

The insurance and financial services company will move all but a handful of its 1,300 Tampa employees from its Boy Scout Boulevard site to Highwoods Preserve, an office park in New Tampa.

MetLife is paying Highwoods Properties Inc. of Raleigh, N.C., $24.5-million for two buildings that were originally part of the corporate campus of Intermedia Communications.

Highwoods Properties announced the contract on June 2, but had not disclosed the buyer's identity.

The deal is expected to close by September and MetLife's workers will begin a phased-in move to the new campus in October. MetLife, which is based in New York City, has operations relating to its institutional and individual insurance business, as well as finance, in Tampa.

John Calagna, MetLife spokesman, said the Tampa work force had outgrown its space on Boy Scout Boulevard and wanted better amenities for employees. MetLife's 20-acre property near International Plaza, owned by the insurer since 1972, will be redeveloped.

Calagna said an 11-story office building on the Boy Scout site will remain and be subleased, but an older two-story building will be demolished. Tentative plans call for construction of a mixed-use complex with retail, office and residential space. Construction will not begin until all workers are moved in 2006.

With MetLife's purchase in Highwoods Preserve, 89 percent of the former Intermedia campus has been sold or leased. Other tenants in the park include Depository Trust and Clearing Corp., Syniverse Technologies and T-Mobile.

Kris Hundley can be reached at hundley@sptimes.com or 727 892-2996.

[Last modified June 11, 2005, 00:25:17]