The global financial storm of 2008 that engulfed CitiMortgage’s Pittsfield Township operation in uncertainty has calmed, and the office now employs nearly 1,000 workers, a CitiMortgage spokesman said.

It’s a notable outcome for an office that endured a series of layoffs and consolidation announcements in late 2008.

The company now employs more than 950 employees at the office in Avis Farms South, off of State Road, CitiMortgage spokesman Mark Rodgers said in an e-mail. That’s up from about 450 in December 2008.

“The majority of the positions are in operations, risk and telesales, with a few support function positions,” Rodgers said.

The personnel growth at the site is partly attributable to about 350 workers who transferred from Southfield in early 2009.

Rodgers said the company had been hiring employees to boost the operation but he didn’t provide specifics. He said the 255,000-square-foot office is near capacity but said the company had no plans to expand beyond the facility.

Rodgers did not respond to a request for an interview on why CitiMortgage selected Pittsfield for growth. CitiMortgage, which was spun off into a unit called Citi Holdings in the aftermath of the financial crisis, manages most of Citigroup Inc.’s $750 billion mortgage portfolio, according to Yahoo! Finance.

That portfolio could grow in coming years: Sales of existing homes in the U.S. are expected to rise from 5.197 million in 2010 to 5.641 million in 2011 and 5.984 million in 2012, according to projections by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Michael Finney, CEO of economic development organization Ann Arbor SPARK, said the CitiMortgage executives he met with six months ago seemed pleased with their decision to maintain a major operation here.

“The message was consistent with what we often hear: Talent seems to be reasonably available, and they continue to have just really good performance once they get folks trained and properly up to speed,” Finney said.

Mandy Grewal, supervisor of Pittsfield Township, said CitiMortgage’s growth underscores the importance of defining a long-term plan for revitalizing the State Road corridor between I-94 in the city of Ann Arbor to US-12 in the township.

“It shows that people are interested in this corridor because it does allow for a good central location and it does provide a real nice central corridor for economic development,” Grewal said.

CitiMortgage inherited the office after announcing on Jan. 22, 2007 -- the same day Pfizer said it was leaving Ann Arbor -- that it was acquiring ABN AMRO Mortgage Group Inc. ABN Amro had purchased the building for $37 million in 2005.

CitiMortgage laid off an unknown number of workers at the Pittsfield site in late 2008 while simultaneously announcing plans to consolidate the Southfield operation in Pittsfield.

Citigroup has some 265,000 employees and a market capitalization of $113.75 billion.

Contact AnnArbor.com's Nathan Bomey at (734) 623-2587 or nathanbomey@annarbor.com. You can also follow him on Twitter or subscribe to AnnArbor.com's newsletters.