The city of Pittsfield is getting ready to welcome Boston-based home furnishings retailer Wayfair to its neighborhood in the Clock Tower Business Plaza. Local leaders say this will help drive economic growth in the area.

Wayfair is set to open its new call center on Thursday, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, welcoming about 300 new jobs to the area.

City of Pittsfield Business Development Manager Mike Coakley says about a year ago the city got word Wayfair was looking for about 50,000 square feet for a call center, so the city put in a proposal.

"They narrowed it down to two choices — the Clock Tower or a new building over the William Stanley Business Park, and they decided to come to the Clock Tower building here," Coakley said. "The state put together a nice program to bring 3,300 jobs to the state of Massachusetts, 3,000 to Boston, and 300 to Pittsfield. And 300 jobs coming to Pittsfield is a huge deal for our city."

While many communities in the Berkshires are suffering from stagnant job growth, but great growth in tourism, 1Berkshire President and CEO Jonathan Butler says the addition of Wayfair helps diverse the area's economy in a big way.

"We've also seen some positive trends in advanced manufacturing and tech, and with Wayfair coming in it continues a trend of more e-commerce type activity in the Berkshires," Butler said.

And besides the job creation, Butler says he sees it as an opportunity to drive wages in the area as well, as many entry-level workers have an opportunity to increase their take home pay.

"The great thing about these 300 jobs is they're coming well-above minimum wage, they're quality, working class wage levels. And this actually creates sort of a migration opportunity where they can move up in terms of average salary," Butler said.

Coakley says having a company with global brand recognition come to the area is helping garner interest from others.

"We have noticed things picking up here in Pittsfield. I think once Wayfair settles in here with the big news, it's going to open a lot of people's eyes to what's really happening in Pittsfield," Coakley said.

Niraj Shah, the founder and CEO of Wayfair, actually grew up in Pittsfield. Butler say Shah's choice to come back and bring a piece of what he created to the area, feels meaningful.

"For one of Pittsfield's own that was educated here, grew up here, his family's still here — it's a great story, we're excited about it," Butler said. "We're grateful he has had the mindset with the success that Wayfair's had and the growth nationally and internationally to bring a piece of that [to] Pittsfield so that can become part of our local economy — the economy he grew up in — and hopefully [this will] have a ripple effect."

Work has supposedly already begun earlier this week, as employees put the finishing touches on the building. Wayfair expects to hire a little less than 200 people this year adding the rest of those 300 jobs over the next couple of years.