Technology center opens in New Orleans

La. Gov. Piyush “Bobby” Jindal and GE Senior Vice President Brackett Denniston on Thursday dedicated the new GE Capital Technology Center in New Orleans. The GE Capital Technology Center, located in Place St. Charles in the Central Business District, adds a boost of 100 professional jobs to the local economy and will eventually employ 300 workers by 2015. It will provide strategic software development and information technology support for GE Capital financial services operations in the U.S. and throughout North America.

The company will employ 150 workers by the end of 2013, and the 60,000-square-foot center’s annual payroll will exceed $30 million by 2017. LED estimates the project will result in 301 new indirect jobs, for a total of more than 600 new jobs. The announcement marks the completed expansion of GE Capital’s initial 20,000 square foot office in Place St. Charles, a 52-floor office tower in downtown New Orleans.

GE Capital initially considered more than 100 cities for the technology center project, ultimately reducing the number of cities under consideration to five—and then two—before selecting New Orleans in February 2012..

“GE is an international business leader and its decision to bring hundreds of new high-tech jobs to New Orleans is a major win for our city,” New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said. “This opening is a sign of the remarkable progress our city has made in becoming an attractive hub for information technology jobs and is a decisive show of confidence in our city’s business climate.”

This article originally published in the April 29, 2013 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.