Nearly a year after Kirkland, Wash.-based HouseValues shut its Yakima facility for good, another Seattle-area company will open a new call center at the same site.

Costco has hired 38 employees to work at the call center, which opens July 14.

The workers, whose wages start at $11 an hour, will primarily take calls concerning its Web site. Wages can increase up to $19 an hour after a few years with the company.

On Monday, Costco CEO Jim Sinegal will come to the call center at 1700 N. Sixth St. for a welcoming luncheon for the new employees, who have been training in Issaquah and Yakima for several weeks.

The call center in Yakima will initially take about 15 percent to 20 percent of the company's calls. Sinegal expects the center to eventually take as much as 50 percent of the calls.

In the short term, he aims to double the number of employees in Yakima by year's end.

About half of the initial hires for the center are transfers from the Issaquah call center, which employs about 260 employees. But future hires will primarily be from the local area, Sinegal said.

That's good news for Michael Morales, deputy director for the community and economic development department at the city of Yakima. The new call center will help strengthen the city's corporate presence and further establish Yakima as a regional center, he said.

"The best part of this center is that it's not a third-party call center," he said. "They do (the calls) themselves. And Costco is one of those companies that isn't slowing down anytime soon."

It was a nationwide real estate slowdown that cause the demise of HouseValues in Yakima.

When the online real estate service firm arrived in Yakima in January 2006, officials promised good paying jobs with benefits and anticipated hiring up to 600 employees over several years.

In return, city officials promised state and local incentives of $500,000.

But those promises were never fully realized. HouseValues was gone by August 2007 and 100 workers lost their jobs.

Costco purchased the 36,000-square-foot building for $2.6 million in March 2007. This time around, there was no need for any incentives.

"They came into Yakima, they saw the property and they thought it was a good fit," Morales said.

* Mai Hoang can be reached at 577-7685 or mhoang@yakimaherald.com.