PINE BLUFF — Entergy Arkansas said late Wednesday that it will shutter a systemoperating center on Barraque Street in Pine Bluff in 2015.
The 100 employees at the center will have opportunities to seek employment elsewhere in the company, said Diane Tatum, regional manager for customer service.
“They are not losing their jobs,” Tatum said.
Centers in Beaumont, Texas; West Monroe, La.; and Gretna, La., are also closing in 2015, Tatum said.
The centers will be consolidated into two facilities, she said — one in Little Rock and one in Jackson, Miss.
Entergy’s news comes at a time when Jefferson County is using a three-eighths percent countywide economic development sales tax, passed by voters in 2011, to help attract new industry.
Pine Bluff’s unemployment rate is the highest among Arkansas’ seven metropolitan areas. In August, the latest for available metropolitan-region figures, the city’s jobless rate was 8.8 percent. Statewide, it was 7.3 percent in August.
Tatum said the decision to close the Pine Bluff center was purely financial.
“Our business analysis over the past few years showed that consolidating these facilities would be the best option,” she said. “And in Pine Bluff, the lease on the building is up in 2015, so that played a part as well.”
The company’s expansive utility and customer service center on 28th Avenue in Pine Bluff will be unaffected, Tatum said.
According to Entergy’s website, the company’s transmission system spans four states, 114,000 square miles.
Entergy currently has six system operation centers across the region. The centers are responsible for the movement of electricity and monitoring for possible overloads, Tatum said, noting that the Pine Bluff facility is the largest of the six.
Lou Ann Nisbett, president and chief executive officer of the Economic Development Alliance of Jefferson County, called the closure disappointing.
“It’s always bad news to hear that jobs will leave your community,” Nisbett said. “But we are still hoping to be in the game for the operations center to be located in Jefferson County. We have been told that the Little Rock location isn’t set in stone, and want to do everything we can to encourage Entergy to build that center here.”
Arkansas, Pages 10 on 10/11/2012