Suburban St. Louis is getting some new jobs and a $20 million data center upgrade courtesy of AT&T, which has announced it has nearly completed hiring 64 additional U-verse technicians and will renovate and upgrade a data center in Bridgeton, Mo. to handle Internet traffic.

AT&T U-verse has captured nearly 100,000 customers in the greater St. Louis area, which is the primary reason the company needed additional technicians.

But St. Louis resident Charles McNed isn’t positive these jobs are as good as AT&T might lead people to believe.

“AT&T is probably adding jobs through a contractor,” McNed says. “Last year I worked for an AT&T contractor and the training was horrendous and the pay was awful.”

The Bridgeton data center, in a building currently leased by AT&T, will be upgraded once the company completes the outright purchase of the property.  AT&T expects to spend approximately $20 million on infrastructure upgrades.

The company held a ribbon cutting ceremony this morning to break ground on the building renovations, and to celebrate the forthcoming use of compressed natural gas-powered service vehicles.

Bridgeton, an economically challenged suburb northwest of St. Louis, is welcoming the new jobs and hopes workers will choose to live and spend their money in the community of 15,000.  Bridgeton has been losing population since at least 1980.

[flv width=”512″ height=”308″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/KTVI St Louis ATT Announcing More Jobs In St Louis 9-27-11.mp4[/flv]

KTVI in St. Louis reports on AT&T’s expansion in northwestern St. Louis County, Mo.  (2 minutes)