By Ken Alltucker
The Cincinnati Enquirer

CONVERGYS COVERAGE

SUNDAY: • Convergys: Council agonizes over take-it-or-leave-it deal • You're more familiar with Convergys than you think • Convergys could displace 5 companies MONDAY: • Norwood fumes at incentives • Convergys first to use new extended tax break law • Amos: City's Convergys deal gives too much, gets too little TUESDAY: • Close call on Convergys • Taxpayers want a bit of help, too • Convergys deal: Vote today (Editorial)

If City Council approves a $63.4 million package Tuesday to keep Convergys Corp. in Cincinnati, it could trigger an unprecedented shakeup involving some of downtown's largest employers.

Convergys plans to use the city incentives, along with Ohio's $144.2 million offer, to buy the Atrium One building at 201 E. Fourth St. It would establish a 1,700-employee headquarters and hire another 225 people over the next three years.

If Convergys completes the deal, it could force a relocation of at least five companies and hundreds of employees in a shuffling of cubicles from Fourth to Sixth streets.

The fallout for Cincinnati could be significant: The package to keep Convergys and its jobs downtown may force the displaced companies to find new office space outside the city, possibly in Northern Kentucky.

Real estate agents and developers are waiting anxiously to see if council approves the Convergys deal, signaling the start of the office search.

The spectre of a downtown real-estate shakeup prompted several council members to ask City Manager Valerie Lemmie whether the city will have to foot the bill for relocation costs of displaced firms.

The largest candidate is Bell, which would be forced from the 11 floors it rents at the 18-story Atrium One. Other companies in the building include Accenture, Salomon Smith Barney and the accounting firm Joseph Decosimo and Co.

With 1,500 workers at Atrium One and the adjacent Atrium Two tower, Bell has the most at stake.

A Bell spokeswoman declined to discuss the extent of the company's talks with Convergys, the city or other landlords. Lemmie estimates about 750 Bell workers would need to move in a few years.

But it could be tough to find that much space downtown. There aren't a lot of vacancies. Worse, it's rare to find contiguous space for a large company. Yet developers are reluctant to build downtown because demand for space is weak.

"Bell is the largest corporate headquarters downtown that is leasing space in one large block," said John Schenk, a commercial real estate agent for Grubb & Ellis West Shell Commercial. "It will be a big challenge to find that much space downtown."

The majority of Convergys employees now work at the Convergys Center, at the northeast corner of Sixth and Vine streets. The plan calls for shifting them, along with 300 people from the firm's Norwood call center, to the renovated Fourth Street headquarters.

That could leave several floors empty at the Convergys Center.

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E-mail kalltucker@enquirer.com