The announcement that DISH Network would close its 600-person call center in McKeesport in March was a devastating blow to a city already saddled with a 10.3 percent unemployment rate.

But Brooks Robinson Jr., of the Regional Industrial Development Corp., which owns the colossal structure that houses the call center, said he saw opportunity.

He said he hoped to turn over the 100,000-square-foot facility, which was refurbished specifically to accommodate DISH, to another company.

"Hopefully, there is another company or organization that will see the benefit of 600 very capable workers and a facility that is in great shape [so] that we can get it backfilled as soon as possible," he said.

In the meantime, the state Department of Labor and Industry announced more bad news: 37 of the 600 employees would be laid off in January, before the slated March 5 closure of the facility.

The company informed the department of the layoffs last week, saying it was a business decision and that the jobs were being moved to another call center facility in New Jersey.

McKeesport is still reeling from the closure announcement, as public officials begin to tally the losses that will come with the shutdown.

The call center is one of the city's top five employers and its employees constitute nearly three-quarters of people who work in the city's main industrial park.

City Administrator Dennis Pittman said the most immediate and apparent loss will be in the emergency service tax.

Anyone who works in McKeesport is billed $52 a year to support the city's fire and ambulance services. The DISH closing will amount to a loss for the city of more than $30,000, which Mr. Pittman said he had to work into next year's budget.

Beyond that, Mr. Pittman worried about the businesses on the city's main drag, which include a drugstore, a handful of restaurants, a grocery store and a gas station. He said those businesses benefited from having the 600 employees nearby.

Allegheny County officials, who lent considerable public support to DISH when it moved in, were hoping to sway the company to keep call center operations in McKeesport.

Dennis Davin, director of the county's Department of Community and Economic Development, said he has to review the company's job-creation requirements because it benefited from low-interest loans and grants when it opened.

The county recently sank $12 million of state and federal transportation funds into constructing a flyover ramp that would give employees in the industrial park where the call center is located better access to the rest of the city.

"We're not writing anything off just yet," he said.

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