Published: January 22, 2018 |

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Alpha Natural Resources is returning to Bristol next month and its corporate offices will soon occupy space in a long-vacant Shelby Street building.

The coal producer is scheduled to relocate its approximately 80-member management team and administrative staff from leased space in Kingsport into the third and fourth floors of the E.W. King building at 636 Shelby St., according to Judy Hill, chief administrative officer.

“We’re excited to be able to move back to the Bristol area. We spent about 13 years in the local Bristol-Abingdon area so we’re excited to get back into the community,” Hill said Thursday. “One of the main reasons for us looking in the Bristol area was better placement for our employees, most of them live in that area.”

In addition to the executive team, the space will house Alpha’s payroll, accounting, human resources, information technology and other professional level staff. The company will close its Kingsport offices but will maintain a presence in Julian, West Virginia, Hill said.

Founded in 2002 in Gate City, Alpha expanded significantly over the decade, acquiring Foundation Coal in 2009 and embattled Massey Energy for $7.1 billion in 2011. The company soon outgrew its corporate office in Abingdon and relocated to a 130,000-square-foot building in Bristol, Virginia in 2011. They vacated that space in mid-2016 after emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

“When we split and emerged from bankruptcy, we had to locate this management team for the new Alpha. The previous team had narrowed it down to the top three buildings and this management team had about one week to make a quick decision. That’s how we ended up in the Kingsport area — it was the best building and best fit for our budget and in the best shape — so that’s why we relocated to Kingsport,” Hill said.

Alpha will occupy about 30,000 square feet in its new Bristol facility. The King building is owned by Joe Gregory and other tenants are expected to occupy the first and second floors. It has sufficient adjacent parking, Hill said.

The move-in is scheduled Feb. 5-9 and employees are to report Feb. 12.

Alpha’s new facility is a short distance from its sibling, Contura Energy, a company formed by the bankruptcy court to operate a portion of Alpha’s former holdings. Contura occupies space on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Alpha has affiliate mining operations in West Virginia, and supplies metallurgical coal to the steel industry and thermal coal to generate power. It has about 20 active mining operations and this week announced it expects to sell between 13 million and 14.6 million tons of coal in 2018.

Source: Bristol Herald Carrier

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