Hill International To Relocate Its Headquarters From NJ To Center City Philadelphia
By Mike Dunn
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- One of the nation's largest management consulting companies is pulling up stakes from South Jersey and, next year, will move its corporate headquarters into center city Philadelphia.
Hill International, a global construction management firm, has been based in Willingboro and, later, Marlton since its founding by Irv Richter in 1976.
But now Irv's son David, the COO and soon-to-be CEO, says the company has decided to move into a center city skyscraper.
"Part of the attraction for being downtown is you're close to decisionmakers, you're close to your clients," David Richter tells KYW Newsradio. "You're really part of the political and business community right there in center city. And we wanted to be part of that."
So, come next May, 120 employees in the Marlton headquarters will move into One Commerce Square, at 20th and Market Streets. Seventy employees in Hill's current Philadelphia office will also move there.
The move is also being helped by a $1-million state grant and more than $600,000 in job creation tax credits.
Richter says there are other advantages:
"You're looking at having access to a better labor pool in center city. You're certainly in an area with tremendous access to transportation. We have a lot of employees here (in Marlton) that commute from Pennsylvania. Their commute will get a lot easier."
Richter says employees will come out okay from a tax standpoint, since New Jersey's income tax is more onerous than Pennsylvania's, even with the city wage tax factored in.
"While there's a city wage tax, the tax ramifications to our employees are relatively neutral, because taxes are higher here in New Jersey," he notes.
Hill International has 4,400 employees in a hundred offices around the world.