MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Officials cut the ribbon on the new Hope Gas Corporate Headquarters, signifying the next evolution for the longtime energy provider in West Virginia.
“It’s going to change the culture of who we are and hopefully be more helpful for the people of West Virginia,” said Hope Gas CEO Morgan O’Brien. “And then, to move the economy forward, we can also help create other jobs,” he said.
Company officials and state dignitaries were on hand Monday to open the new 35,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility officially received a ribbon. The new facility, located in the West Virginia University Innovation Corporation’s Chestnut Ridge Road facility, encompasses and is home to logistical operations for the state utility.
Renovations to the facility allowed Hope Gas to make the new Morgantown headquarters the primary operation for customer service, gas control, and dispatch operations. Human resources, finance, accounting, regulatory, IT, and other administrative functions are being housed at the state-of-the-art facility, employing about 150 people.
“To have all of the medical institutions, the great city, and all the social aspects to it, we need to be able to keep people, and we think that this is a great place to do that,” said O’Brien on what prompted the decision to make Morgantown the headquarters for Hope Gas.
Efforts to expand Hope Gas’ headquarters in Morgantown began in early 2023, not long after Hope Gas was formally separated from parent company Dominion Energy in 2022. This was followed by the acquisition of just over 900 miles of gathering pipelines from the Equitrans Midstream Corporation in 2023, with plans to acquire more utilities around West Virginia. Efforts that Governor Jim Justice spoke highly of when he addressed the public at the ribbon cutting.
“Just think of the goodness that Hope Gas brings to West Virginia all the time,” said Justice. “Whether it’d be last-mile hookups or whether it’d be taking over old mines and everything, they’re going to have their headquarters here,” he said.
The new headquarters will take up a predominant amount of space from the former Mylan Pharmaceuticals facility, which was taken over by the WVU Innovation Corporation. As more acquisitions are completed by Hope Gas, they will serve over 200,000 residential, industrial, and commercial customers in 35 West Virginia counties, with the potential for more growth over the next five years. If growth plans move forward as scheduled, the new Morgantown headquarters for the utility could see more development with the potential to add more jobs to the Mountain State.
“We want to be innovative in that we want to be different from a utility perspective,” said O’Brien. “We want to be a part of the community, replacing the jobs that left with our jobs; it just felt like this was just a poetic place for us to be, and it’s obviously a great location, right in the center of town here,” he said.
Hope Gas currently employs 400 people, all of whom are currently working in West Virginia.