Student loan servicing company Navient celebrated the opening of its new Wilmington headquarters Tuesday morning.
After spinning off of Sallie Mae last year, Navient took over the management of 12 million federal student loans as the nation’s largest student loan servicer.
That began a search for a suitable location to call their own, and now a significant portion of Navient’s Delaware workforce calls 46,000 square feet of the the Wilmington Riverfront's Star Building on Justison Street their new home.
Company president and CEO Jack Remondi likes the diversity of his new neighbors on the vibrant and growing Riverfront.
[caption id="attachment_73328" align="alignright" width="300"]https://www.wdde.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/navient2-300x184.jpg Navient president and CEO Jack Remondi cuts the ribbon on the company's new Riverfront headquarters.[/caption]
"We looked at a variety of different places to move - some suburban and some urban - and when we finally made the decision we looked at the amenities that are here on the waterfront - from the restaurants to the train station to the hotel and the conference center - this is really what worked best for our employees," said Remondi.
Between the new Riverfront office and space they lease in Newark there are 800 Navient employees in Delaware - and Remondi says they plan to add more – including 12 current openings.
"This location is ideal for our employees, but its also great for employers like Navient, given the areas strong pool of talented workers," he said. "That's important because I'm pleased to say we plan to add 150 jobs in Delaware by 2016."
Delaware’s congressional delegation and Gov. Jack Markell (D-Delaware) – on hand for the ribbon cutting Tuesday morning – praised the decision to expand in Delaware – and agreed that more jobs shows the Riverfront is growing.
With that growth - Riverfront Development Corporation's executive director Mike Purzycki says the Riverfront is exceeding the hopes they had for it from the beginning.
“We’ve always had a vision, we always knew it could be successful, and I think over the last two or three years we’ve seen it happen," said Purzycki. "And so it’s not only that we see it happen, it’s that employers come down here - prospective employers – and they just love what they see and they want to be down here.”
In a show of support for their new Wilmington home, the company's nonprofit arm distributed three separate $15,000 donations to the Delaware Children's Museum, the West End neighborhood House and city youth program Duffy's Hope.