Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan is bringing about 380 employees to the Southfield Town Center to work in its growing Medicare Advantage consulting business line, the state's largest health insurer has confirmed.

Detroit-based Blue Cross will lease about 65,000 square feet across three floors in the 1000 Town Center skyscraper with a planned opening in late April or early May, said Helen Stojic, director of corporate affairs for BCBSM.

The employees will be a mixture of new hires and current employees working out of the Detroit headquarters, Southfield and Lansing. Blue Cross' footprint in its 21-story headquarters at 600 E. Lafayette Blvd. in downtown Detroit will remain the same as it repurposes the space being vacated for other business units, Stojic said.

The employees are from departments in the insurer's Emerging Markets Division, which Crain's reported on in March.

Among those taking space in Southfield are divisions within Tessellate, which is a business unit offering other health plans with Medicare risk adjustment and quality programs, Stojic said.

Blue Cross has more than 6,000 employees in downtown Detroit.

Last May, the board of the Michigan Blues approved a plan to create an emerging markets division that would coordinate new and enhanced business lines like Medicare Advantage. Besides helping fellow Blues plans, the idea is to boost revenue and profits to help the Michigan Blues subsidize other operations.

As part of that new plan, Blue Cross now is managing claims and offering various support services to two smaller Midwest Blues' plans for their Medicare Advantage products, Elizabeth Haar, Blue Cross' new president of emerging markets division, said in June.

The emerging markets division now includes the Accident Fund, Medicare Advantage, Medigap (Medicare supplemental insurance) and two unnamed departments that will offer business outprocessing and quality improvement services for Medicare products.

Nationally, there are 36 Blues plans with 107 million members. Medicare Advantage is a health insurance business line that has been especially profitable for insurers the past several years, including the Michigan Blues.

On the quality improvement consulting services the Michigan Blues are now offering, Blue Cross officials said they will help other plans achieve quality measures, review portfolio of insurance services, support pharmacy benefits and offer general consulting services,

Haar said she believes the Michigan Blues can help other Blues plans earn a 2-to-1 return on investment.

Transwestern has the management and leasing contract for the Southfield Town Center, a 2.2. million-square-foot office complex that was purchased in 2014 by New York City-based 601W Cos. for $177.5 million.

The 1000 tower is 28 floors with 598,000 square feet and was built in 1989, according to CoStar Group Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based real estate information service.

CoStar says the building is 80 percent occupied.

The deal marks a win for the Southfield Town Center complex, which is expected to lose Microsoft Corp. as a 50,000-square-foot tenant under an expected deal with Dan Gilbert to bring the software company to downtown Detroit.

- Crain's reporter Jay Greene contributed to this report.