Pandemic causes big Boise employer to abandon landmark downtown office building
CenturyLink will turn off its phones and pull the plug on the internet service at its downtown Boise call center.
Its plans create a big vacancy in one of downtown’s most prominent office buildings — and they’re another sign that the coronavirus pandemic threatens downtown’s growth as an employment center.
The company, based in Monroe, Louisiana, sent its 360 call center workers home in March because of the coronavirus pandemic. Now CenturyLink has decided to continue having its Boise employees work from home rather than return to One Capital Center at 999 W. Main St.
The call center operated on a portion of seven floors CenturyLink leased in the 14-story building. Its name adorns the top of white, concrete-and-glass building, one of downtown’s landmarks.
“We are proud of our people who are doing amazing work for our customers remotely,” spokesperson Mark Molzen said by email. “After a lengthy discussion, we have decided to transition our people to work from home positions in Boise and Idaho Falls.”
The vacancy at One Capital Center will leave about 100,000 square feet open for leasing. Skip Oppenheimer, CEO of Oppenheimer Development Corp., one of the building’s owners, was not immediately available for comment.
While downtown construction is still booming with buildings planned before the pandemic, some developers worry about the future. Commercial construction permits in Boise were down one-third in the first seven months of 2020 from the same period a year earlier. Patronage at downtown parking garages has fallen sharply as former commuters work from home.
“It’s really hard right now to decide what you’re going to build,” Clay Carley, a longtime downtown landowner and developer, told the Statesman last month. “You have to ask, what kind of future will Boise enter into?”
One Capital Center was completed in 1975 for Mountain Bell, CenturyLink’s predecessor. At the time, it was Boise’s tallest building. Its successors, US West Communications and Qwest, also maintained offices there. CenturyLink acquired Qwest in 2011.
Potato magnate J.R. Simplot had an office on the top floor, and his company, the J.R. Simplot Co., had its headquarters there until moving to a building next to Jack’s Urban Meeting Place on Front Street in 2015. For more than a decade, The Peregrine Fund operated a webcam showing peregrine falcons nesting with their eggs.
CenturyLink employs 130 workers at its Idaho Falls call center, located at 1875 International Way.
Company technicians will continue to provide service at customers’ homes and offices, Molzen said.
“Our goal continues to be to provide quality customer service, products and a positive customer experience in Idaho,” he said.
Seventy-five percent of CenturyLink’s 42,800 employees are working from home, CEO Jeff Storey said on an earnings call Aug. 5. He said the company was planning a “broader return to the office,” but said he told workers not to expect to return to the office before early fall.
“Like many of our customers, the crisis has accelerated our digital transformation and changes to our staffing model,” Storey said during the call. “Frankly, I don’t expect we will ever return to work-from-work approach we had prior to the pandemic.”
Boisedev.com first reported that CenturyLink’s workers will keep working from home.
