NATCHEZ, Miss. – The announcement Monday of a business expansion in Natchez promises to create 200 jobs and occupy one of the city’s largest vacant downtown buildings.
Loss Prevention Services plans to put its corporate headquarters in the former Regions bank building at the corner of Franklin and Pearl streets.
LPS is an information-technology company that helps banks and other lenders find and repossess automobiles from delinquent-paying borrowers throughout the country. It currently has offices in Natchez and Michigan.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves joined company executives and local government officials Monday at the Natchez Convention Center to announce what the governor said is “exceptional news, especially when local economies and businesses are trying to rebound during these trying times.”
While the COVID pandemic is curtailing economic activities and causing job losses nationally, LPS plans to gradually expand its staff to create 200 additional jobs by summer 2022, according to the plans unveiled Monday.
The development also involves tearing down the old A&P grocery store – vacated decades ago — and upgrading the area for parking. The former Regions bank building will be able to accommodate a staff of about 300 LPS employees, according to the plans.
LPS was co-founded by company Chairman Sterling Gay of Natchez.
“We have an outstanding leadership team and feel confident that we will be pleased with housing the corporate headquarters here in Natchez,” Gay said in a statement issued by Natchez Inc., the economic development agency for the city, Adams County and Vidalia.
LPS’ Natchez leadership team includes Chief Financial Officer Paul Burns, Chief Information Officer Clifford Tillman and Chief Human Resources Officer TJ Baggett. The chief executive officer is David Cowlbeck of Michigan.
Natchez Grand Hotel owner Warren Reuther had purchased the property from Regions with plans to convert it into a hotel after the bank vacated the 45,000-square-foot building in 2017 and relocated to Canal Street. Reuther later scrapped his hotel plans and put the building up for sale.
Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson noted LPS fits well into the city’s downtown revitalization plans. “This influx of high paying jobs in downtown Natchez will be the catalyst we need to reinvigorate the small-business community and create new opportunities for small-business growth downtown,” Gibson said in Natchez Inc.,’s announcement of LPS’ business venture.
LPS’ expansion calls for the company to expend about $3 million, according to the plans presented Monday.
The company’s planned creation of new jobs comes as local unemployment has worsened in recent months. Adams County’s jobless rate in July was 14.9 percent – up from the 8.1 percent in July 2019, according the state Department of Employment Security. The number of people unemployed in July was 1,630 – up from 930 a year ago.
As an incentive to get LPS to expand in downtown Natchez, the state is providing money for infrastructure and parking-lot improvements. City officials last month applied for the grant from the Mississippi Development Authority, which is giving $260,000 from the state’s Development Infrastructure Grant Program.
As is the normal practice about prospective business ventures not ready to be made public, government officials had not said much publicly about LPS’ development plans in Natchez. They dubbed it “Project Silver.” They’ve been “hard at work behind the scenes,” said Reeves, and “we are excited about the company’s promising future in southwest Mississippi.”
For more information about what Loss Protection Services does and who leads it, go to its website:www.losspreventionservices.net
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