Assurity Life Insurance Co. confirmed Tuesday what has been rumored for months: The company will build a new headquarters near 19th and Q streets in the Antelope Valley redevelopment area.

The seven-acre site is north of Q Street, east of 19th Street and west of the proposed new Union Plaza Park.

Assurity President and CEO Tom Henning said planning for the project is still in very preliminary stages, but the site likely will include a headquarters building of about 160,000 square feet with room for expansion. Construction is expected to begin in late 2009, with the building opening in late 2011.

Henning estimated Assurity will spend about $32 million on the project, which also is expected to qualify for around $6 million in tax-increment financing.    Tax-increment financing, or TIF, is a common redevelopment financing tool that allows the higher tax value created by a private project to be captured to finance associated public improvements, like streets, for example. 

Assurity’s project is by far the largest private project planned for the Antelope Valley area thus far.

“Our company is pleased to be one of the first to help jump-start the Antelope Valley redevelopment effort,” Henning said, describing the area as “an unprecedented opportunity for the future of our community.”

Assurity and its roughly 450 employees have been operating out of two buildings — at 15th and K streets and at 40th and Pine Lake Road  — for several years.

Neither building has space for all the employees nor room to expand to accommodate them, so the company made plans to sell them both.

The 40th and Pine Lake building has been sold to Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers and the state of Nebraska has agreed to buy the 15th and K building.

Henning said Assurity could have gone and built  a new headquarters “out in a cornfield somewhere,” but the company’s board of directors felt strongly about remaining in the city’s core.

Assurity, which offers a wide range of insurance and financial products to companies and individuals, has a history in Lincoln of more than a century. Each of its three founding companies — Lincoln Direct Life, Security Financial Life and Woodmen Accident and Life — have been based here since the early 1900s.

“Our board, composed almost entirely of Lincoln business leaders , felt strongly the company was  in a unique position to be one of the first private-sector investments in one of the most exciting opportunities ever presented to Lincoln,” he said.

Assurity is working with WRK LLC and its principals, Will and Robert Scott, who are serving as the projects developers.  Clark Enersen Partners have been selected as architects and Sampson Construction as the project manager. 

Lincoln Mayor Chris Beutler called the Assurity project a reward for the public, which has been “very patient” with the long Antelope Valley process.

At an estimated $238 million, the Antelope Valley project, intended to renew a large section of the city’s core east and north of downtown by improving roads and flood control, is the largest public works project in the city’s history.

It’s also been one of the most criticized for its cost and duration.

“I think it’s very rewarding for everybody to now see the private sector  pick up on those improvements and start building the city,” Beutler said.

He also said he hopes Assurity’s new headquarters will be a catalyst for driving more businesses to the area.

Henning echoed that sentiment.

The area is being touted as a research and development corridor because of its proximity to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Henning said he thinks that proximity, combined with the improved road network planned in the area, will be a big draw for other companies.

“We think long-term there will be a lot of businesses that will think this is attractive,” Henning said.

Lincoln Chamber of Commerce President Wendy Birdsall, who called the Assurity headquarters a “super project,”  said her organization has already had contact with several businesses that are eyeing the area.

“This will truly be a catalyst project for the Antelope Valley area,” Birdsall said. “We really feel this will spawn new investment and new ideas.”

Reach Matt Olberding at 473-2647 or molberding@journalstar.com.