Center Partners, a Fort Collins, Colo.-based call-center operator that already employs more than 1,100 people in Kootenai County, says it plans to open a third facility there soon, this one in Hayden, that will employ 150 people initially and perhaps as many as 280 later.

The company, which operates in-bound call centers in Coeur d'Alene and Post Falls, has leased a 26,000-square-foot facility at the intersection of Prairie Avenue and U.S. 95, in Hayden, for the new call center, says Tim Keaty, a human resources manager for the company in Post Falls.

Keaty says the company already has begun hiring employees for the new center, and the new hires have begun a three-week training program. He says the facility is scheduled to open Sept. 16.

Center Partners is opening the Hayden center due to expanded opportunities with one of its clients, Keaty says.

Center Partners, which provides customer service and sales support by phone for national and multinational companies, opened a 48,000-square-foot call center in Coeur d'Alene in 2001, Keaty says. That facility, located at 1201 W. Ironwood Drive, currently employs 550 people. It opened its Post Falls center in November 2001 in 28,000 square feet of space in the Riverbend Commerce Park, at 748 S. Clearwater Loop. It now employs 625 people, says Keaty.

Those two call centers have had ups and down in employment. The Journal of Business reported that 300 employees were laid off between July 2002 and May 2003. In June of 2003, Center Partners said it planned to hire 150 more employees in Kootenai County, but then announced in October that it planned to close its Coeur d'Alene center. It later dropped those plans, and in February 2004 said it was adding 200 employees, mostly at the Coeur d'Alene facility. Later that year, it announced plans to add 300 more employees in North Idaho, bringing its work force there to 800.

Center Partners began operations in Fort Collins in 1997, and was bought by WPP PLC, of London, in 1999. It currently operates two call centers in Fort Collins, one in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and the two in Kootenai County. Keaty says the company has continued to grow through the recession. It receives about 36,000 inbound calls per day at its five facilities.