LEXINGTON COUNTY, SC Time Warner Cable’s expansion in Lexington County will provide 644 new jobs to the area that will pay $40,000 or more a year, the company said Friday.

Those jobs, primarily the cable television and Internet giant’s customer care agents, representatives and supervisors, come with full benefits and are expected to be filled this year, the company said.

The jobs also should provide a significant boost to the local economy, elected leaders said.

“The company’s growth will bring good-paying jobs that will have an impact throughout Lexington County and the Midlands as a whole,” said state Commerce Secretary Bobby Hitt in a statement.

Surrounding communities are looking forward to the expansion’s economic impact.

Time Warner Cable’s West Columbia facility is the former NCR building, located contiguously to Springdale’s town limits.

“The peripheral economic impact is going to be great,” said Pat Smith, Springdale mayor for 29 years. “I look forward to the opportunity to see the spinoffs from it.”

Time Warner announced the $24 million expansion of its 310,000-square-foot facility located on Platt Springs Road in West Columbia during a ceremony at the Capitol on Friday morning.

The expansion in Lexington County will increase Time Warner’s 1,300-person employment roster in the state by more than 50 percent, the company said.

The spinoffs Smith mentioned could positively impact town retailers such as gas stations and restaurants – even the jewelry trade -- he said. The projected salaries that come with the jobs also could boost home sales in the small town, Smith speculated, just at a time when the state’s housing market appears to have made a turnaround toward recovery from the worst recession in a lifetime and its after-effects.

“All of those kinds of things (could be affected), because we’re right there kind of at the epicenter of this development with Time Warner,” Smith said.

In announcing the local expansion, in which Time Warner said it will consolidate some of its operations from elsewhere here, the company quickly outlined plans to hold job fairs for some of the open positions this month and next.

An initial job fair will be Tuesday at the Platt Springs Road facility from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. to fill retention positions, with a second open house scheduled for Jan. 15 at the Hilton Garden Inn on Farrow Road in Northeast Richland from 1 p.m. until 4 p.m.

The Time Warner Cable expansion includes its retention center, telesales operations support and payment services departments at the West Columbia location.

Additionally, open positions will be posted online at www.timewarnercable.com, the company said, where interested parties can click on the “locations” tab to see jobs in Columbia.

Time Warner’s jobs come with full benefits, the company said, including medical, dental, vision, a matched 401(k) plan and tuition reimbursement.

Gov. Nikki Haley praised Time Warner, the state’s largest cable provider and the nation’s second largest, for maintaining operations in South Carolina.

“While we work to bring new companies to South Carolina, it speaks to the strength of our state’s business-friendly climate when existing businesses like Time Warner Cable succeed and grow,” Haley said.