Worthington Industries has purchased the office building at 200 Old West Wilson Bridge Road, where it has leased space for its corporate offices for nearly a decade.

For the company, the move marks a strategic step forward, company spokesperson Cathy Lyttle said.

For the city, the economic development implications are huge, Worthington City Manager Matt Greeson.

"It's outstanding news for the city," Greeson said last week. "Worthington Industries has renewed and strengthened its commitment to the community."

The company moved its executives from the company's former headquarters at its Dearborn Drive manufacturing facility in October 2003. Dearborn Drive is in Columbus, just north of Worthington.

Currently, 290 people work in the 120,812-square-foot, three-story office building that was part of the Corporate Hill development built in 1981.

Besides its executives, the building houses the finance, communications, tax and human-resources departments.

With the 10-year lease soon to expire, the company began looking for a building to purchase about a year ago, Lyttle said. Other locations were considered, but the Worthington site won out because of its location near the plant and employees and because the Wilson Bridge corridor seems to be making a comeback.

With new restaurants and businesses opening at the Shops at Worthington Place, employees have a place to dine or to just get out and take a walk, Lyttle said.

"Plain and simple, we like being in Worthington," she said.

The purchase price was $7.6 million.

Besides being good for the city to have a Fortune 1000 company headquarters in Worthington -- and the obvious income tax advantages -- the sale speaks volumes to the future of the Wilson Bridge Road corridor, Greeson said.

The corridor plan envisions Wilson Bridge Road from the Olentangy River to the railroad tracks on East Wilson Bridge as a booming, mixed-use development over the next 20 years.

"This purchase says a lot about them and speaks to the long-term success we are going to see on Wilson Bridge Road," he said.