Elardi family lands a big one — NY tech and consulting company

One big fish.

Two experienced fishermen.

When Sutherland Global Services of New York made a splash in 2014 with news that it might bring 1,000 jobs to Southern Nevada, leasing agents for two storied local commercial properties began casting for the technology outsourcing and consulting company's planned call center.

On the east side, The Boulevard, a 47-year-old Maryland Parkway mall remade into a community and retail center, was angling to fill the final 4 percent of its space — a 106,000-square-foot chunk of a shuttered Dillard's.

Out west, in The Lakes, the Elardi family — owners of the Casino Royale on Las Vegas Boulevard — needed to net a tenant for their sprawling, 3.3-acre call center at 8725 W. Sahara Ave. Citibank had more than 1,000 employees on-site until it left in 2014, closing the book on what was once one of the city's biggest economic-development successes.

In the end, the Elardis reeled in Sutherland, which launched operations Jan. 6 inside the former Citibank center. Sutherland has leased a little less than 150,000 square feet of the 300,000-square-foot center, with an option on all of the space, said Jim Myers, the company's senior vice president and head of customer operations. Myers declined to discuss any other lease terms.

Sutherland has hired about 200 employees, and has doubled its initial jobs forecast. Dan Lang, head of worldwide customer relations, said the company will have about 2,000 local employees by the end of 2016. There may be more to come: A key reason Sutherland went with the Citibank space was the ability to expand, Myers said. The option for more space will also allow Sutherland to build collaborative high-tech spaces with local public agencies and universities.

Sutherland is hiring managers, technical engineers, trainers and information technology people, Lang said.

Sutherland told the Governor's Office of Economic Development in March that it would pay an average hourly wage of about $14.50 — roughly a third lower than the state's average. Still, the office offered nearly $300,000 in tax abatements to lure the business, which handles customer-service calls and other operational needs for global businesses.

Gov. Brian Sandoval said Monday that Sutherland "is a major boost to Southern Nevada."

"The expansion of Sutherland Global Services will help build a diversified, shared-services economy and provide excellent vocational training and employment opportunities through the creation of sustainable jobs that are essential to our goal of creating the new Nevada," Sandoval said.

Lang added that Sutherland is "competing against the Accentures and the IBM Global Services of the world."

"Half of our portfolio is Fortune 500 names, including some of the newest, greatest ones you can imagine," he said.

They wouldn't be the first Fortune 500 companies to do business in the space.

Citibank built the office park in 1990 as a credit card payment processing center. Its arrival was a signal moment in the local economy, the first big get in a local push to diversify Southern Nevada. It was the first time a nongaming company opened a big local employment center, and it helped civic leaders sell the idea that a Las Vegas address needn't keep businesses away (though Citibank did ask for a "Red Rock" postal drop).

But Citibank slashed 760 of about 1,100 jobs in September 2013, a move the company blamed on a drop in mortgage refinances. It cut the last of the center's positions in early 2014.

Filling the building back up is important not just for the regional economy, but for the nearby community, said Mark Musser, a partner in commercial real estate brokerage NAI Vegas.

"That facility was almost a 24-hour facility. It was an important economic driver in the area," said Musser, who wasn't involved in the Sutherland deal. "You don't want a vacant building of that size in our market. It leaves a hole in the neighborhood. Having employees there creates traffic for surrounding businesses."

At The Boulevard, the fishing expedition continues. The marketwide office vacancy rate in the fourth quarter stood at 19.5 percent, according to CBRE Las Vegas. It's still a competitive market, with more space than deals to go around, Musser said.

"It's still a little soft on that (big) size of user in our market," he said. "It's going to take time for them to find a tenant."

The mall has already enjoyed an improbably fast turnaround. Since local developer Sansone Cos. bought the distressed center for $54.5 million in December 2013, occupancy has spiked from 70 percent to 96 percent. Only the Dillard's space is keeping the mall from what's essentially full occupancy.

General manager Timo Kuusela acknowledged that the space doesn't have some of the call-center infrastructure of an existing campus such as the Citibank plaza. But it has the best parking-to-space ratio of any call center in town, he said, and it's on a main Regional Transportation Commission bus line. It also has a mall's worth of services under the same roof, including sit-down restaurants such as Applebee's and John's Incredible Pizza Co., services such as LensCrafters and Major Hair, and even department store JCPenney.

Kuusela said he's "actively negotiating" with half a dozen potential tenants, and still expects to land the property's big catch soon.

"It's a timing thing. A lot of call-center operations will be expanding in the first quarter," he said. "Some of them are companies who aren't here yet."

Contact Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com. Find @_JRobison on Twitter.