The former Capgemini building along Spring Valley Road in Junction City has been vacant since 2009, starting June 1st that will change.

The Junction City Commission approved a six year lease agreement for the building with Advanced Call Center Technologies Tuesday night.

Before the Commission could approve the lease they first had to approve a lease termination agreement with Capgemini.

Catherine Logan, City Attorney explained that in the agreement Capgemini will continue to pay rent through May 31st and will also make two clawback payments for not maintaining certain levels of employment.

“Between now and the end of the month they will be writing a check to the city for roughly $570,000,” Logan said.

ACCT will then take over the monthly rent and maintenance of the building beginning June 1st. Base rent for ACCT will start at $8 a square foot increasing each year.

“ACCT will initially lease approximately half of the call center building,” Logan explained.

“They have an option to take additional space during the first year, if they take any of that additional space during the first year they’ll start immediately paying rent on that additional space.”

After the first year no matter what ACCT will take over the remainder of the building.

One provision of the lease does allow ACCT to terminate the sublease through the first four years, if they are unable employ 350 full time equivalent employees in any consecutive 90 day period, despite making an effort to do so and having enough business for those employees.

Jimmy Griffiths, ACCT Chief Financial Officer explained that they have entered into similar leases at other locations and have never had to terminate a lease.

“I am pleased to report that we have never exercised the termination provisions in any of our leases in terms of employment. I am also pleased to report that our initial need I believe we were looking to hire 40 people starting on June 1st and we already have over 100 applications for those jobs,” Griffiths said.

ACCT is an outsource call center provider with a clientele list that includes two of the worlds largest financial service businesses, and one of the worlds largest telecommunications companies.

Tom Weigand, Junction City Area Chamber of Commerce CEO said that ACCT coming to Junction City is a big deal.

“This is a very good evening, very good time in Junction City when we can fill a quality facility with a quality tenant that pays really good wages and benefits,” Weigand said.

ACCT plans to hire more employees in a step ladder fashion over the next six years, and ultimately employ approximately 650 employees.

“I can tell you that in two of our locations we had the exact same goal and we exceeded that in the first six months of operation,” Griffiths said. ” I can’t say that’s going to be the case here but I can say that over the next four months we will have employed approximately 250 agents and then also support personnel on top of that.”

They will be relocating the site director from their Sacramento, California location but otherwise plan to hire locally.

“This is a game changer, this is a shot in the arm for the community,” Commissioner Mick McCallister said. “We have a workforce that is in close proximity, there are a lot of people looking for jobs. This is an economic boom for the community.”

ACCT is currently taking applications on their website at www.acttoday.com.