Taco Bell Delays Its Decision on Relocation : Employment: Atlanta, Dallas and North Carolina have been courting the Irvine-based Pepsico subsidiary.

Taco Bell Corp. said Tuesday that it has extended its self-imposed deadline to decide the fate of its Orange County headquarters until March, when it also will decide whether it will stay in California.

Company executives previously had said they would decide by Tuesday whether to build or lease new headquarters and would reveal by March where they were moving.

In a letter to 900 employees working in its shiny Irvine tower, the company said that it is continuing to evaluate offers from other states and cities, including those in the California.

“We still want to study the issue,” said spokeswoman Janis Smith. “It’s just taking longer than we expected to get all the information we wanted to make a decision.”

Taco Bell’s lease ends in November, 1996, but the company said it needs about three years’ lead time in case it decides to build its own headquarters. The company is growing at such at rate that it expects to outgrow its current quarters by the time the lease expires.

While the delay could prolong the agony for employees, it could give Orange County and California boosters a little more time to make their case.

“I think it would be good news in the sense they would be around longer,” said Terry Hartman, president of the Irvine Chamber of Commerce. “I want them to stay in Orange County, preferably in Irvine.”

Hartman said that Taco Bell is an important test. Its decision to remain could serve as an important example that could be pointed out to other companies that are wavering about moving to what they perceive as greener pastures.

But ever since it announced in September that it is reviewing sites both in and out of state, Taco Bell has seen a parade of offers and presentations from other communities that smell another California company ripe for picking.

Taco Bell is especially wanted because it is exactly the kind of company that most states want--a white-collar company brimming with good-paying jobs. It presides over 4,200 fast-food restaurants from its headquarters and has been one of the nation’s fastest-growing and most closely watched firms.

Among the suitors have been Atlanta, Dallas and North Carolina, whose officials confirm their interest in Taco Bell but will say little else about what they are doing to attract it.

North Carolina Gov. James B. Hunt paid a “courtesy call” to Taco Bell’s headquarters on Nov. 4 as part of a Southland swing to round up a new crop of companies for the Tarheel State.

California has mounted an effort to stop Taco Bell from leaving. The state has formed one of its “red teams,” a task force of executives from different levels of government and business groups, to see what can be done to persuade the Pepsico Inc. subsidiary that it should not leave.

That effort, Hartman said, is continuing.