USM putting headquarters in Norristown

Although backers of the much-delayed Norristown movie studio project are hoping to break ground in November at the earliest, a different large-scale business development is about to appear in its blighted vicinity.

With cash grants from the state and county, the facilities-management company USM plans to put its North American headquarters in a disused Sears building yards from the planned soundstages of Studio Centre.

Up to 500 USM workers will be stationed in the frayed industrial town, where revitalization efforts go back decades.

"There are a lot of doubters in this county who would say nobody would ever locate the North American headquarters of anything in Norristown," Montgomery County Commissioner Joseph M. Hoeffel III said yesterday.

USM, which manages janitorial and similar services for other companies, is Norristown's second-largest private employer, with 317 workers in its current offices. The new office will consolidate some functions from the company's offices in Norristown, California, and New York.

The company must add at least 100 jobs to keep a $1.9 million grant awarded by the county commissioners yesterday. If its business plan goes as drafted, USM could add 100 more jobs after that, said George Spink, chief executive officer.

The grant is the first payout of the $105 million economic-development initiative that Montgomery County began this year. Along with county and state grants, USM is spending $4.7 million on the $8 million project, which will give it 78,000 square feet of work space, with room to expand into 28,000 more.

"Not a lot of people in this current market have that amount of space available," Spink said.

USM anticipates opening shop in the old Sears in August, he said. Its lease runs for 10 years, with options for 10 more.

Commissioners Chairman James R. Matthews said the economic-development initiative was "really energizing the economic base of Norristown" through the USM deal.

"This is what the economic plan envisioned: partnerships," he said.

Commissioner Bruce L. Castor Jr., who opposed the economic-development plan, voted for the USM grant because it required no new borrowing.

Though delayed, the movie-studio aspect of the Studio Centre complex is said to be still on track. Developer Charles Gallub said that architectural plans were finished and that a contractor had been hired, though there are concerns that the state's film tax credit may not survive the ongoing budget debate.

"It's not holding us up," Gallub said, "but it certainly could be impactful on the viability of the studio."

He added that he hoped to announce soon another deal for the Studio Centre complex: an agreement to build Norristown's first new full-service supermarket in decades.