MORGANTOWN — A new ownership agreement for the 1.1 million-square-foot former Mylan facility on Chestnut Ridge Road dominated headlines last week.
Could news about Mylan’s 142,000-square-foot research and development facility on Collins Ferry Road be next?
Monongalia County Commission President Tom Bloom recently revealed that Morgantown is in the running to land the Sparkz battery “Gigafactory” promised to West Virginia.
“I can say we are trying to bring them here,” Bloom said. “I have talked with the CEO of the company and I am very excited.”
During an announcement last month in Charleston, Sparkz CEO Sanjiy Malhotra said the company would begin construction on a zero-cobalt battery manufacturing facility in West Virginia this year.
As part of that announcement, the company pledged it was partnering with the United Mine Workers of America to recruit and train dislocated miners to be the factory’s first production workers.
The facility will initially employ 350 workers.
Messages left at the number listed for Sparkz’s corporate office in California have gone unanswered.
But there already appears to be local ties.
According to information available online, former West Virginia Black Bears General Manager Matthew Drayer became the vice president of Business and Development for Sparkz in January.
Sparkz was founded in late 2019 with the goal of challenging China’s dominance in the field of next-generation energy storage. It is commercializing the only high-energy-density, cobalt-free, lithium-ion battery made in America.
When asked about the likelihood that could all be happening in Monongalia County, Morgantown Area Partnership President and CEO Russ Rogerson said he was unable to comment.
“But I do hope sometime in late April we might have some good news,” Rogerson said.
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