300 jobs for Kaua’i were on the line The Ticket Plus call center proposed to fill the old Gem Store space in the Pi’ikoi County Building in Lihu’e has turned out to be a wrong number. Last Thursday, when bids
300 jobs for Kaua’i were on the line
The Ticket Plus call center proposed to fill the old Gem Store space in the Pi’ikoi County Building in Lihu’e has turned out to be a wrong number.
Last Thursday, when bids were due and scheduled to be opened from companies interested in leasing the space, there were none.
“The county did not receive any bids. Nobody submitted a bid at all,” said Wally Rezentes Sr., administrative assistant to Kaua’i County Mayor Maryanne Kusaka.
The deal to entice Ticket Plus Inc. to establish a Lihu’e call center where telephone operators would take orders for tickets via a toll-free number was structured well enough for chief executive officer Manuel A. “Manny” Sanchez to seriously consider it, but the timing was off.
One of his business partners said if the deal couldn’t be made in time for the call center to open by Sept. 1, it wouldn’t be done – at least for now.
“I am disappointed that a call center will not be located on Kaua’i at this time,” said Sanchez. “Unfortunately, because of delays in securing a call-center site, it would have been difficult to be ready for operation by Sept. 1.”
He said the call center would have created upward of 300 jobs in customer service, accounting, telecommunications and management.
“It would also have helped establish Kaua’i as an attractive destination for other customer service opportunities,” he said.
Sanchez thanked county officials “for their cooperation” and administrators of Kaua’i Community College, who were planning a curriculum that would have trained potential call-center employees.
“The island offers a favorable business climate. I hope to pursue other opportunities on Kaua’i in the future,” he said.
There are no plans for Ticket Plus to establish a call center elsewhere in Hawai’i before the company’s Sept. 1 deadline, said a Ticket Plus spokeswoman.
The county’s unoccupied Pi’ikoi building “will continue to be in its present state until we decide how to use it. Right now it is used for storage,” Rezentes said.
The County Council last month passed a bill which authorized a five-year lease on the old Gem Store site at a rental rate between $100 and $200 a month.
The county administration had said that Ticket Plus, a national company with headquarters in Honolulu, had other islands and locations in mind for a new call center and that the Kaua’i economy needed the business, so a deal was brokered to have them locate here.
That deal would have provided many local jobs, and plans were underway to tailor a curriculum for training at Kaua’i Community College.
The company was said to have been willing to make $300,000 in improvements to the former retail space owned by the county that would have stayed with the county when the lease ended.
Ticket Plus had, according to Rezentes, submitted its intention to bid on the site earlier this month. But the company didn’t follow through and actually submit a bid by last week’s deadline.
When reached for comment Monday afternoon, County Councilman Gary Hooser was at first surprised.
“I don’t know what to say. I hadn’t heard that,” Hooser said. “I’m very disappointed. The council and the administration went through all this work, and now it appears it was a waste of time.”
Hooser said “it would be better” if the county in the future considered “well-planned, long-term economic initiatives, such as business incubators.”
Staff Writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at mailto:dwilken@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 252).
Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
