State Farm To Close Tulsa Center

The Tulsa center serves State Farm clients in Oklahoma and Kansas. It's one of eleven regional centers the insurance company is closing around the country.

"A number of our facilities will be moving to the company’s headquarters in Bloomington to our major hub offices in Dallas, Phoenix and Atlanta, as well as to a number of existing locations across the United States,” senior media relations representative Justin Tomczak.

Tomczak said the decision was made to allow the company to remain competitive and adapt to customer needs. He said employees in those 11 regional offices that close will have job opportunities within the company at other locations.

Still, there's no guarantee everyone will have a job by the closing date in 2019.

"Our staffing needs, just like our evaluation of our facility, changes and its flexible and it is done with our customer at the forefront,” Tomczak stated.

The State Farm office in Tulsa was a big economic "get" when it opened in July of 1989 on the site of the old mayo farm, whose iconic stone siloes still stand. Fifteen hundred people worked there then.

By 2004, State Farm was threatening to close the center but didn't, and nearly 800 jobs were saved.

The Tulsa Chamber of Commerce stated although this is unwelcome news, they're confident the Tulsa job market can take the hit.

"Very confident that we'll be able to meet, be able to absorb the jobs in the region in that area,” said Tulsa Chamber’s Sr. Vice President for economic development Brien Thorstenberg. “So on one hand, its very unwelcome news but luckily the economy is doing well enough that we can absorb it.”

State Farm said this move will not affect local agents. The Tulsa Chamber said they do have a couple of expansions that will be announced in the coming months and are confident that the economy will continue to grow.