Scott Paper Says It’s Leaving Philadelphia : Relocation: The slimmed down company is moving its headquarters to Florida.

Scott Paper Co. took its restructuring a historic leap further Monday by announcing a relocation to Florida, abandoning the top tissue maker’s Philadelphia home after more than a century.

Corporate headquarters will move to Boca Raton; North American operations will move elsewhere in the Philadelphia area, and other regional centers will be created in Paris and Hong Kong.

Scott’s 55-acre complex in Tinicum Township near the Philadelphia airport will be sold to the Koll Co., a Newport Beach-based real estate company, for $39 million. Completion of that sale is expected within three months.

The moves were announced by Chairman Albert Dunlap, a turnaround specialist who took over almost a year ago at Scott, a leading producer of tissue products that range from Cottonelle toilet paper and Viva paper towels to Baby Fresh diaper wipes.

Under Dunlap’s direction, the company has cut 11,200 jobs as part of a streamlining effort aimed at focusing on the more profitable segments of the business. With the downsizing, Scott now uses less than a fifth of its 740,000-square-foot headquarters space.

“Scott is successfully making the transition from a paper company to a packaged-products company,” Dunlap said. “Our Philadelphia headquarters building is impressive, but it just isn’t in tune with our business plans and our commitment to increase shareholder value.”

A staff of about 300 will remain at the North American headquarters, and a number of locations are under review in Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The corporate breakup will produce “one lean and responsive global headquarters overseeing and guiding the three regional operations,” Dunlap said.

Florida’s campaign to attract Scott began last November and culminated Friday with a flight by Gov. Lawton Chiles to Boca Raton to meet the company’s top officers.

“I appreciate the fact that you came . . . to visit me personally,” Dunlap told Chiles by telephone Monday. “We had to be convinced that the state really wanted us.”

The company was promised a $280,000 grant by Palm Beach County, state tax credits for creating attractive jobs, and the potential for state-funded job training.

“Your headquarters and your company are the kind of new citizens that we’re seeking in Florida,” Chiles told Dunlap. “We want high-value jobs, and we want jobs that are going to be compatible with our quality of life.”

Scott, with a commitment of about 100 jobs by midsummer, will join a fellow Fortune 500 company, W.R. Grace & Co., which moved to Boca Raton in 1991.