Hill International moving from Marlton to Center City

Wooed by state and city grants and tax credits worth nearly $4.4 million, Hill International Inc., the Marlton-based construction management and consulting company, will move its corporate headquarters and 120 jobs to Center City in May 2015.

The company promises to add 100 more jobs by 2018.

Hill, which consults on projects globally and locally, employs 4,000 people worldwide in 100 offices.

Meanwhile, in an unrelated deal, a plan to add 1,000 jobs in Camden "is shut down," said Irvin Richter, chairman and chief executive officer of Hill.

"We sort of put that on the shelf," he said.

Last October, 2,000 job applicants gathered outside a vacant factory in Camden, drawn by Richter's plan to hire 1,000 people, at $15 an hour or more, to manufacture construction materials, as well as temporary, modular housing units.

Richter was a partner with Acts Industries L.L.C., a subsidiary of AlphaGen International, an Iowa company that makes a variety of construction materials. He said he ran into problems with one of the partners and decided to back out "before the marriage."

By the time Hill moves to the city, Richter will have retired as chief executive, replaced by his son, David, now chief operating officer and president.

David Richter declined to comment on the collapse of the Acts deal, saying it was his father's side venture.

It was David Richter who, knowing Hill's lease in Marlton ended next June, negotiated the move to the 60,000 square feet on the 16th and 17th floors of One Commerce Square at 20th and Market Streets.

"We've outgrown this office where we are in Marlton," David Richter said, describing One Commerce Square as a "trophy building."

David Richter said Center City was "the obvious place to go."

"You have a whole bunch of benefits - access to our clients, access to business partners, to the government, to decision-makers," David Richter said. "It raises our profile. It's the best location for our company, our employees and our potential employees, and we'll be closer to the major universities."

David Richter said New Jersey did not offer any incentive for Hill to stay.

"If all you are doing is renewing your lease, there's almost nothing that they do for you," he said. "Otherwise they'd be writing checks to every company for just renewing their lease."

He said that without the incentives, however, "it would been cost-prohibitive for us to move."

Pennsylvania is providing $1.7 million: a $1 million grant, $34,000 in training; and $666,000 in tax credits, available at the rate of $3,300 per job.

The city kicked in $2.7 million: $450,000 in job training grants, a $750,000 low-interest loan to outfit the space and $1.15 million in tax credits, available about $5,200 a job. Also included is a $345,000 loan from the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. that can be forgiven based on job creation.

About 70 Hill employees already work in Center City. The tax credits are for the jobs moved from New Jersey and any new ones that are created.