ICT Group Inc., a suburban Philadelphia-based call-center operator, is expanding its Spokane Valley call center, which is located at the University City Shopping Center.


Jackie Amendolari, ICTs Philadelphia-based spokeswoman, declines to say how many employees the call center here currently employs or how many it intends to hire when the expansion is complete, but says the project entails adding several hundred work stations to the several hundred work stations that are already there.


ICT has leased an additional 20,000 square feet of floor space on U-Citys second floor, giving its call center a total of about 70,000 square feet of space there now, says Orville Barnes, leasing agent for U-City and owner of Barnes Consulting Group, of Spokane.


ICT opened the call center there in the fall of 2000, and real estate sources at the time said the center was expected to employ about 650 people within two to three years.


The additional space is located just east of ICT Groups current area and formerly housed part of a J.C. Penney Co. store. T.W. Clark Construction LLC, of Spokane, has started a $500,000 remodeling project there to convert that space into offices for ICT Group.


Tom Clark, president of T.W. Clark Construction, says the Spokane company expects to complete that remodeling job in mid-May.


Amendolari, the ICT spokeswoman, says the company considers the Spokane call center to be a success.


Were pleased with the labor quality and labor pool in the Spokane area, she says. Were expanding because of that.


According to ICT Groups Web site, the company operates 40 call centers in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and the Pacific Rim.


The company offers both inbound-call and outbound-call services at its call centers.