JPMorgan buys 58 acres on Route 202, will add jobs

As expected, JPMorgan Chase & Co. has "officially closed on our agreement today to purchase a 58-acre portion of the property at 1800 Concord Pike in Wilmington," says spokeswoman Nicole Kennedy. The property was part of AstraZeneca's U.S. headquarters campus, which is being scaled back amid mass layoffs and a possible sale of the Europe-based drugmaker.

"We anticipate being in a position to start occupying the new buildings in early 2015," Kennedy added. "Delaware continues to be a great place to conduct business, and for our employees to live and work." The company is based in New York, where high living expenses and regulatory compliance burdens has pushed some financial employers to seek cheaper space elsewhere.

JPMorgan currently employing more than 7,500 at sites near Newark, New Castle and Wilmington, all in northern Delaware, ranking it among the state's largest private employers. The bank has added a net 1,200 jobs since 2012 "and expects that number to increase," Kennedy added. She didn't say whether some of the jobs on 202 would be relocated from JPMorgan sites elsewhere.

Delaware (unlike Pennsylvania) is growing faster than the U.S. average, thanks in large part to financial jobs, said Delaware's Governor Jack Markell, a Democrat, in a statement. "JPMorgan Chase has been a big part of that growth," he added. The company is also a major employer of recent University of Delaware business school graduates, and works closely with the MIS department and other groups within the university's Lerner business school, replacing the former MBNA Corp. in that role.

JPMorgan bases units of its credit card, consumer lending and tax shelter businesses in Delaware, home to liberal lending laws and low bank taxes.