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E-mailReversal of Dish Network decision to close McKeesport call center unlikely
Joe Napsha is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review staff writer and can be reached at 724-836-5252 or via e-mail.
Dish Network Corp.'s decision to close its McKeesport call center in March and cut 600 jobs — despite receiving about $13.1 million in taxpayer money — has spurred efforts to prevent the facility from becoming yet another vacant former steel mill in the Mon Valley.
The Regional Industrial Development Corp., which owns the industrial park where the call center is located, is preparing to market the property and is spreading news about its availability next year, said F. Brooks Robinson Jr., vice president for the Downtown agency.
"We've already started that process. We're ... identifying other (potential) users," Robinson said. The property remains under lease with Dish Network until March.
The closing could not be prevented even though Dish received taxpayer-funded loans and grants since 1998. Dish and its predecessor, EchoStar Communications Inc., received $5.1 million from the RIDC to open the facility in 1998, $2.5 million from the state and $5.4 million in low-interest grants and loans from Allegheny County.
RIDC President Donald F. Smith Jr. said he was not aware of any unfulfilled commitments Dish Network might have made to get funding for the call center, which provides customer service.
The call center is closing to reduce inefficiencies in Dish's operations, not because of any problems with the staff, said Dish Network, which provides satellite television programming to about 13.6 million subscribers. The company considers the 105,445-square-foot McKeesport facility, once a U.S. Steel Corp. pipe mill, as too large for its needs.
Dish Network operates 12 other customer call centers throughout the United States, including in Ohio, West Virginia and Virginia, which will absorb the calls handled in McKeesport. Some of the workers may have an opportunity to fill openings at Dish's other centers, the company said.
Dish Network's decision to leave the Mon Valley was a bitter pill for politicians.
"After all the financial assistance, goodwill and efforts on the part of the city, Mayor (James) Brewster and Allegheny County, I cannot believe they are going to close," said Allegheny County Councilman Robert Macey, a Democrat whose district includes McKeesport.
But Dish Network's closing should not be a surprise because companies make these decisions based on market conditions and economics, not for political reasons, said Matthew Ryan, an assistant professor at Duquesne University's A.J. Palumbo School of Business.
"This shows that it is very difficult for government to plan economic development in the long run," Ryan said. When politicians get involved in economic development funding, "the money's not always directed where it is needed or can benefit the most," Ryan said.
"When the business model changes or the economy goes bad, there is no amount of government money that will keep them there," said Eric Montarti, senior policy analyst at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy, a think tank in Castle Shannon.
Government assistance — whether its financial or logistical — is just part of the competitive game played by states and regions to land businesses, said John Skiavo, chief executive of Economic Growth Connection of Westmoreland, an economic development agency based in Greensburg.
"There are very few businesses, big and small, that don't ask for some kind of assistance," Skiavo said.
