MORGANTOWN – In 2023, the Morgantown Utility Board hired Omni Associates and began exploring a major expansion of its central office, located at 278 Green Bag Road.
The issue lingered on meeting agendas into early 2024, but was eventually put on the back burner while MUB pushed ahead with more pressing matters – primarily the launch of the Cheat Lake Wastewater Treat Plant upgrade currently underway.
Now, MUB leadership is committed to moving forward with the much-needed expansion.
According to The Dominion Post archive, MUB’s current headquarters consists of 1,660 square feet of basement space and 8,715 square feet on the main level. It was built in 1988 but has undergone multiple minor remodels over the last 25 years.
More than 40 employees work out of the building.
“We’re on top of each other. We’ve really run out of space,” MUB General Manager Mike McNulty said in May 2023.
Earlier this week, David Snider of Omni Associates presented a plan that would add 1,255 square feet to the building’s basement and 4,732 square feet of office space on the main level.
Further, it would untangle some of the workflow problems that have arisen as MUB has been forced to place people in available space instead of optimal locations.
“There’s a lot of flow problems. To put it another way, your different departments are sort of intermingled with other departments and you’re just overcrowding,” Snider said.
According to Snider, a very rough estimate puts the cost of the expansion at just over $6 million.
That number represents an increase of about $160,000 over where it was estimated to be when MUB put the breaks on the project last year.
Additionally, MUB is looking to invest an estimated $2.1 million in 7,675 square feet of workshop and garage space in order to get the utility’s large, and expensive, equipment out of the elements. The garage will have a parking bay, a pull through wash bay and its own office space.
According to Snider, much of the groundwork for these projects has already been accomplished.
“I told these guys that probably next week when we meet, we’ll have some stuff as far as interior design and probably look at what the exterior of the building will look like,” he said. “We’ve got geotechnical done. We’ve got all the surveying done, so we’re ready to move full force forward. We think we can be ready to go to bid around the first of the year.”
