Coal company to keep headquarters in Southwest Va.

Coal producer Alpha Natural Resources chose to build a new corporate headquarters in Bristol for economic reasons and to stay close to its roots in rural Southwest Virginia, its chief executive officer said.
The company said yesterday that it plans to open a new headquarters building in Bristol's Sugar Hollow Business Complex by 2011, bringing 69 jobs to Virginia.
The decision stems from Alpha's $1.4 billion, all-stock acquisition in August of Linthicum Heights, Md.-based Foundation Coal Holdings. The deal, which created the nation's third-largest coal producer, also led Alpha to consider other locations, including sites in Tennessee and Maryland, for a larger headquarters space.
Alpha settled on the site in Bristol -- about 5 miles from its current home office in Abingdon -- because it could build there faster and at a lower cost than at about a dozen other locations it considered, said Kevin Crutchfield, Alpha Natural Resources' chief executive officer.
Crutchfield said the company resisted pressure to move its headquarters to a larger metropolitan area.
"In the end, we felt like our roots were here in Southwest Virginia, and it allows us to be proximate to our coal miners," he said. "We have a good many operations in Southwest Virginia and eastern Kentucky that we can access easily from here."
Alpha Natural Resources has about 6,200 employees and more than 60 coal mines in five states.
Also, Virginia is providing incentives through a $1 million grant from the Governor's Opportunity Fund, while the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission is providing $3.4 million in tobacco settlement money targeted for economic development projects. The money will be used for building costs, Crutchfield said.
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's office said the new headquarters would create about 69 jobs. Crutchfield said those jobs will be a combination of new hires and transfers from Foundation Coal's Maryland office. Alpha has about 130 headquarters employees now.
Alpha is investing about $17.5 million in the new headquarters through a lease-buyback agreement. The project is expected to result in an additional $3.5 million in direct outlays. The new building will have about 100,000-square-feet of space versus the company's current 40,000-square-foot office.