Friday, March 26, 1999
Ohio Casualty shifts workers to Fairfield
Some remain in Hamilton
BY JEFF McKINNEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Ohio Casualty Corp. plans to move more than half of its 1,350 workers from its headquarters in Hamilton to Fairfield this summer.
The Hamilton-based property and casualty insurer, one of Butler County's largest employers, said Thursday that about 250 employees will be among the first big wave of workers to move to offices that housed Mercantile Stores' headquarters on Seward Road.
Those employees are part of 1,100 workers the insurance company plans to place at the site of the corporate offices of the former parent of McAlpin's between now and July, said Cindy Denney, Ohio Casualty's spokeswoman.
Though Ohio Casualty maintains that it will keep its headquarters in Hamilton, the company is making the most of its purchase and $33 million investment in the Mercantile site in Fairfield.
The company's Hamilton office will house 600 to 800 workers after the transfers to Fairfield occur — down from 1,350 now.
Plans also call for Ohio Casualty to move its executive department — including its chairman, chief executive and chief financial officer — into the Mercantile building this summer.
Hamilton Mayor Thomas Nye said Thursday that his city offered Ohio Casualty several options to retain the jobs and also offered to help the business in the future.
“We presented them several options to enhance their operation in Hamilton, but they have declined those options,” Mr. Nye said.
Ohio Casualty received incentives from the Butler County commissioners that included transferring the remaining four years of a 10-year, 100 percent real property tax abatement from Mercantile to Ohio Casualty. The commission also agreed to stop efforts to regain $2.3 million in tax breaks that Mercantile had been given for the first six years of the tax-abatement deal.
Ms. Denney said workers who will move into the Mercantile building by Monday are employees whom the company picked up from its acquisition last fall of Great American Insurance Co.'s commercial lines business. Ohio Casualty picked up about 600 workers — including between 300 and 400 locally — from that deal.
Ms. Denney said those Great American workers are moving from three offices in downtown Cincinnati. Of 250 moving this weekend, 25 will be relocated to Hamilton. Ohio Casualty has yet to move some Great American workers from their Blue Ash site.
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