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Uniprise, which received financial incentives, is set to open a large health claims processing center in Oldsmar and add 330 employees.
By ED QUIOCO
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 12, 2000
OLDSMAR -- The newest corporate giant to make its way to Oldsmar is on the verge of opening the doors on a 103,000-square-foot claims processing center.
Uniprise, an arm of UnitedHealth Group, which provides health care plans and insurance to more than 50-million Americans, is relocating and expanding its Tampa Bay operations.
The company plans to move more than 300 employees from Tampa to the new facility at the Tampa Bay Park of Commerce this weekend, said Dolph Mariotti, Uniprise director of operations. It also plans to add 330 employees, eventually having at least 700 workers at its new location.
"It's an enormous operation," Mariotti said. "We are looking to take the people we have and use them as a springboard for growth."
Growth in and around Oldsmar, spurred in part by transportation improvements and a wide pool of potential workers, is vigorous.
A 20-screen American Multi-Cinema theater complex with more than 100 employees opened earlier this year in Oldsmar, and construction has begun on an $8-million Wal-Mart Supercenter on Tampa Road that will employ about 500. Ocean Optics, a maker of filters for the fiber-optics industry, has been offered tax incentives to expand to the area. Its entry would bring about 300 jobs, paying an average of about $35,000, the company has said.
Uniprise officials, since announcing the relocation and expansion Jan. 31, have been drawing on the worker pool. One reason the company was attracted to Oldsmar, Mariotti said, is that its central location lets it draw workers from Pasco, Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.
Uniprise has at least 80 employees in training and has not had problems finding workers despite a tight labor market. The starting salary for employees without experience is about $22,000.
"We have been very pleased with the numbers and the quality of people we are finding," Mariotti said. "Our studies have indicated to us that the area is a great place to do business and Oldsmar will be a terrific spot for us."
Uniprise has more than 12,000 employees nationwide and provides employee benefit plans for large employers such as BellSouth and Coca-Cola. Uniprise's parent company, UnitedHealth, is headquartered in Minneapolis and has more than $19-billion in revenues.
Uniprise received an incentive package that included about $1.2-million in state and county tax refunds after a host of local, county and state officials, including Gov. Jeb Bush, wooed the company.
"It's a big deal," Pinellas County Commissioner Karen Seel said. "It's not every day that you end up with a project that has over 600 employees with good-paying wages opening in our county. To be able to bring in a company of this magnitude and of this quality is wonderful and astonishing."
The majority of the new positions will be for claims processing and customer service representatives. The employees who will be relocated to the Oldsmar facility come from the company's offices in Tampa's Westshore area and Clearwater, with Tampa employees relocating first.
The company is placing the finishing touches on the building and testing telephone and data lines before this weekend's move.
"We expect to be fully operational by 8 a.m. on Monday," Mariotti said.