JPMorgan Chase Invests in DE Sites, Jobs
JPMorgan Chase retrofitting Delaware space, looking to fill over 700 jobs
JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced plans Monday to renovate 33 floors of office space, build a new parking garage for Wilmington employees and fill 725 roles in Delaware.
The groundbreaking ceremony, attended by U.S. Sen. Tom Carper, U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki and several senior Chase executives, reconfirmed the New York bank’s commitment to the First State that will include a massive modernization effort across its corporate campuses in Wilmington and Newark. JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) said this will be its largest U.S. real estate and active renovation investment, behind only the ongoing development of its new Manhattan corporate headquarters at 270 Park Ave.
JPMorgan has five office locations in Delaware — three in Wilmington and two in Newark — with the bank owning four of them. The nation’s largest bank has over 11,000 Delaware employees, second only to ChristianaCare among private employers in the state.
Delaware is the headquarters for the bank’s credit card business and also houses a variety of back office operations and customer facing operations, including a fast-growing retail presence that began in 2019 as Chase launched a plan to add 50 branches in the Philadelphia region within five years.
Chase also has about 2,800 employees at a technology center opened in 2016 at 880 Powder Mill Road in Wilmington. Of the 725 job openings, Chase said about 200 will be technology roles at a time when giants such as Google and Microsoft are laying off tens of thousands of employees.
“The message we’re trying to say is that some organizations may be trimming their sails on the tech side where we are looking for talent here and all levels of talent,” said Don Mell, Chase’s market executive and Delaware site lead.
The 725 jobs are largely open positions and not new roles, Mell said. Many of the openings were created by employees relocating to other markets across the U.S and the world, he said. Some are new roles and some openings are due to attrition.
As for the renovation project, Mell said Chase is building a 700-space parking deck at its Wilmington Corporate Center at 201 N. Walnut St. as more employees return to work post-pandemic. The bank said that will allow it to bring all remote parking onto the campus to make it more convenient for employees. A spokesman said most Chase employees are asked to work from their office between three and four days a week.
“We are encouraging people to come back into the office,” Mell said. “We feel that that’s what really drives collaboration.”
Chase is also renovating 22 floors of office space on its Wilmington Corporate Center and another 11 floors at its Newark Corporate Center. Mell said the project would take several years to complete and focus on significant technology upgrades and enhancing space utilization for both buildings, which are about 40 years old. The enhanced space will be more flexible and include more designated space for collaboration.
Mell did not say exactly how much the project would cost, saying it was a “moving target” and a “substantial investment” in the multimillion-dollar range.
Chase said the garage will be its first project built using low-carbon materials/concrete and will save some 465 metric tons of embodied Carbon (CO2e) from being used during construction.
This article was originally posted on the Philadelphia Business journal website at: https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2023/01/30/jpmorgan-chase-looking-to-fill-over-700-jobs.html