In the coming weeks Ameren's real estate staff will be in contact with parties who have already expressed interest in purchasing the site.
The majority of employees who currently work at the 27th Street building will move to AmerenIP Decatur facilities at 370 S. Main St. and 2460 N. Jasper St. by the end of 2005. Moves could be completed earlier if the building is sold promptly.
Shawn Schukar, AmerenIP vice president-Energy Delivery Operations, reaffirms that Decatur will continue to be the headquarters for AmerenIP's operations. "Consolidating staff at our Plaza and Jasper Street buildings goes hand-in-hand with a focus on keeping our operating headquarters in Decatur," Schukar said. "These facilities will house the functions necessary to enable AmerenIP to provide the service our customers expect and deserve."
Illinois Power had been assessing the utilization of its various Decatur properties for the past few years due to its reduced workforce, and had considered selling the 27th St. facility and consolidating functions in other buildings. Those plans were put on hold when Ameren announced the agreement to purchase IP.
"The South 27th Street property is an attractive site," Schukar said. "We are optimistic the building will be sold and occupied, providing jobs and contributing to the local economy."
Ameren mainframe operations moving to Decatur
Along with additional staff moving into the AmerenIP Plaza, mainframe computers that serve the entire Ameren Corporation are moving to downtown Decatur as well.
Ameren is consolidating its data center infrastructure with that of AmerenIP and relocating a large portion of its production data center infrastructure from St. Louis to Decatur. Work will be completed this weekend (Feb. 5-6). With this consolidation, the Decatur facility will be Ameren's primary data processing center. Infrastructure will be distributed between St. Louis and Decatur, and some data center operations will remain in St. Louis. Backup facilities will be centralized in St. Louis.
Distributing the information technology infrastructure and resources between two facilities provides tremendous flexibility to support future corporate growth, and significantly improves Ameren's overall viability in the event of any type of incident that would impact either facility. Ameren expects the consolidation of facilities and operations provide ongoing savings.
AmerenIP is a subsidiary of St. Louis-based Ameren Corp. (NYSE:AEE). Through its subsidiaries, Ameren serves 2.3 million electric customers and 925,000 natural gas customers in a 64,000-square-mile area of Missouri and Illinois. With assets of nearly $18 billion, Ameren owns a diverse mix of electric generating plants strategically located in its Midwest market with a capacity of more than 14,800 megawatts.