LI's Davis Vision moving to Texas with 100 jobs

Davis Vision Inc., a Plainview eye care company founded nearly a century ago in New York City, is moving its corporate headquarters and 100 jobs to Texas, its parent corporation says.

HVHC Inc. will move Davis and another of its subsidiaries, Eye Care Centers of America, to a downtown San Antonio high-rise.

Davis says it will probably shed its name as HVHC moves to consolidate its 15 national retail companies under a single brand name, Visionworks.

Davis, with its subsidiary Empire Vision Centers, operates a managed care network with 55 million members, and thousands of clients including state and federal agencies, unions, HMOs, insurers and major corporations. Its provider network includes more than 30,000 ophthalmologists, optometrists and retailers.

The move was announced Thursday.

In an earlier announcement, the company said the plan would affect “some 100 administrative employees, but does not impact more than 1,300 other Davis Vision and Empire Vision employees who will remain in the state of New York.”

Davis has 13 retail stores on Long Island, from Rockville Centre to Rocky Point. The company also said its Plainview-based manufacturing operations would not be affected.

“The relocation will be seamless.” the company said, “to Davis Vision's clients, members and providers.”

The move to downtown San Antonio will bring Davis Vision into a 100,000-square-foot space in an office building that has been mostly empty since AT&T moved out years ago. City officials see it as a step toward revitalizing San Antonio amid a corporate flight to the suburbs.

“The new headquarters will bring more than 350 jobs downtown including 100 new positions as Davis Vision relocates from Long Island,” HVHC said.

Newsday has covered Davis Vision over the decades, noting in 1993 that Gov. Mario Cuomo esteemed it. "Mario Cuomo created the 'Excelsior' prize to honor private companies and government agencies in New York State that do things so well that they are examples to the rest of the country," Newsday reported. "The winner of the New York Excelsior this year is Davis Vision, of Plainview, Long Island."

In 1997, Newsday reported that Larry Davis, then 56, of Sands Point, the chairman and founder of Davis Vision, "was recently honored by North Shore University Hospital in Plainview during a gala evening at Cold Spring Harbor Country Club." He was "honored for his "total commitment to the health care community and for his successful efforts as a Long Island businessman."

In 2008 Davis Vision gave away backpacks to the first 1,500 children attending a Long Island Ducks baseball game.