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E-mail This StoryThe Plano City Council met Monday evening to unanimously approve the terms and conditions of an agreement between the City of Plano, Collin County and the Cigna Corporation.
According to the incentive agreement, the Cigna Corporation will be relocating business and commercial activities to a 204,000-square-foot office building on the Dallas North Tollway between W. Plano Parkway and Park Boulevard.
“The move is really a consolidation of the four offices that Cigna has in the Dallas metro area,” said Gwyn Dilday, spokesperson for the Cigna Corporation. “We’ll be able to centralize our employees in one location and create a synergy to provide stronger customer service to our employees and customers.”
Dilday said Cigna is excited about the move because Plano is a geographically desirable area for businesses and employees.
“Plus, the new office buildings, built with green materials to promote environmentalism and with an on-site gym to promote a healthy lifestyle among the employees, will accommodate a growing employee-base in the future,” Dilday said.
The agreement states that the retention, creation or transfer of 1,064 jobs will promote economic development, stimulate commercial activity and enhance the tax base and economic vitality of the City of Plano.
“The biggest ‘win’ was the expected number of jobs that the company will be bringing to Plano,” said Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Harry LaRosiliere. “There will be a consolidation of offices and Cigna will have a regional headquarters in Plano.”
LaRosiliere said Cigna is expected to bring between 1,000 and 1,100 jobs with the company.
“And hopefully some ancillary businesses will pop up after Cigna’s establishment, which will further benefit Plano in the long run,” LaRosiliere said.
The ground-breaking ceremony for the two Cigna office buildings in west Plano will take place Oct. 3 and construction is scheduled to be completed by Dec. 31, 2009.
CIGNA was formed in 1982 through the combination of the Connecticut General Corporation and INA Corporation. INA was founded in 1792 in Philadelphia after meetings in Independence Hall. Connecticut General was founded in 1865 in Hartford as a life insurance company.
CIGNA’s formation in 1982 combined a leading property-casualty insurer with a leading supplier of life insurance and employee benefits. Over time, CIGNA sharpened its focus on group health care and related benefits.
CIGNA continues to innovate, expand and grow, with recent acquisitions of Sagamore Health Network, Inc. with operations in Indiana and parts of Kentucky and Ohio, and Great-West Healthcare, with a network of approximately 4,275 hospitals and more than 575,000 physicians and ancillary providers, primarily in the western United States.
Place 3 Councilmember Mabrie Jackson was not in attendance at Monday’s meeting.
The next scheduled Plano City Council meeting will be held at 7 p.m. on Oct. 13 in the Council Chambers in the Plano Municipal Center.
