Equitable Resources Inc. said Tuesday it will expand its corporate headquarters and move it and two business units to the 32-story, 625 Liberty Ave. building Downtown, previously known as Dominion Tower.
Equitable hopes to generate 350 new jobs with the expansion over three years. About 225 of those remain to be hired, a spokesman said.
The natural gas company, one of the most coveted office tenants looking for space in Pittsburgh, said it leased 257,000 square feet in the 620,000-square foot Liberty Avenue tower for its executive offices and the headquarters of its expanding gas production and services business units.
The company had outgrown its headquarters on the North Shore and had considered a number of other sites for about 500 employees. Eventually, more than 700 employees will move to the new Downtown location, spokesman Wayne J. Desbrow said.
Naming rights for the Liberty Avenue building have not been determined.
"Although we are anticipating a good bit of growth outside of Pennsylvania, we're happy to be keeping our corporate headquarters in Pittsburgh," Equitable CEO Murry Gerber said in a statement.
"The unregulated gas drilling and transportation segments of our business have been driving our development, thanks in great part to the hard work and innovative attitude of all of our employees."
The state will provide a $2.8 million package of incentives, including a $1.4 million opportunity grant, $350,000 in job training assistance, and $1.06 million in job creation tax credits.
Early this year, Equitable called off a proposed $970 million acquisition of local competitor Dominion Peoples Gas and Dominion Hope, a sister gas distribution company in West Virginia, from Dominion Resources Inc. of Virginia.
Equitable's North Shore building, which opened in 2005, will remain the headquarters for Equitable Gas, the company's gas distribution utility. About 175 employees will be left there. The company has said it is out of space at that $35 million, 180,000-square-foot building. No public money was used to construct the building, which Equitable leases from Continental Real Estate Co. of Columbus, Ohio.
The move will further split Equitable Gas from other parts of the company. Equitable in June made the gas utility a separate legal entity, saying it needed to divide the regulated business from the unregulated gas exploration and production units for more flexibility in seeking financing.
Dominion is awaiting regulatory approvals to sell the Peoples and Hope businesses to San Francisco-based Babcock & Brown Infrastructure Fund North America.
Equitable spokesman Dave Spigelmyer said yesterday the company has "no intention of selling Equitable Gas at this time."
Equitable's decision to move its headquarters Downtown concluded a search that spanned almost two years, said David Koch, of Fischer & Co., a Downtown commercial real estate firm it hired to scout locations.
"They looked at options throughout the local market and also outside of the state of Pennsylvania," Koch said.
Downtown's amenities and the 625 Liberty Ave. building's proximity to the company's existing operations played a major role in the decision, Koch said.
The company expects to begin moving employees into the building in the spring of 2009 and complete the transition by the summer.
Equitable's move will bring occupancy in the 625 Liberty Ave. building to between 97 percent and 98 percent, said Pat Greene of CB Richard Ellis/Pittsburgh, who handles leasing for the tower.
The tower's occupancy stood at only 40 percent after Dominion Resources Inc., the former namesake tenant, opted to move to the D.L. Clark Building on the North Shore in 2006.
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