Fate of Great Western Offices, Jobs Up in Air

So what happens now to the vast, 1-million-square-foot Great Western headquarters office complex and the 3,000 jobs that go with it?

“Lots of people would like to know those answers. But we really haven’t had time to work on that,” said Doug Wisdorf, deputy chief financial officer at Washington Mutual Inc. in Seattle. Washington Mutual is expected to win approval next week by Great Western’s shareholders to buy the thrift in a $7-billion takeover deal, now that rival H.F. Ahmanson & Co. has dropped out of the bidding.

Wisdorf said that Washington Mutual has been so busy in the past four months in legal skirmishes with Ahmanson that it probably won’t have a plan until this summer as to which jobs and buildings in Chatsworth it will keep.

Great Western has its corporate headquarters in Chatsworth, as well as various data processing, branch office, day care, human resources and other departments in the complex.

Great Western owns two office buildings, and leases nine others here; those leases still have nine to 15 years to run.

Commercial real estate agents have said that it could take years for Washington Mutual to lease or sell off its unneeded space in Chatsworth.

“There are a lot of talented people at Great Western who live and work in that community. You’d like to take advantage of that to the extent you can,” Wisdorf said. “The cost of the real estate is a factor, but generally not a major factor” in deciding how to run the new organization.

Great Western spokesman Charlie Coleman said employees are encouraged that Washington Mutual appears to have won the takeover battle, because it has fewer California offices than does Ahmanson’s Home Savings, so fewer posts are likely to be eliminated.

Still, Coleman concedes that those in the Chatsworth headquarters “have the most concern obviously, because a lot of headquarters functions are duplicated” at Washington Mutual’s headquarters in Seattle.

One saving grace, Coleman pointed out, is that all Great Western employees who lose their jobs get a minimum of six months’ severance pay, up to a maximum of 18 months.