MORGANTOWN — The Monongalia County Commission conceded Wednesday that any hope of bringing the Sparkz “gigafactory” to Monongalia County has fizzled.
The commission approved up to $60,000 in funding to the Monongalia County Development Authority to cover interest-only payments as part of a deal to bring a business into the former Mylan Pharmaceuticals warehouse at 3712 Collins Ferry Road.
This is the same property the commission fully expected would be the future home of Sparkz, the energy startup that announced its plans to build a lithium-ion battery factory in West Virginia back in March.
In fact, Commissioner Sean Sikora said, the commission had already agreed to provide for up to two years of interest-only payments for the building as part of the Sparkz deal.
“So when that deal ended up going south … and when I say south I mean literally south in West Virginia, the development authority was still in the middle of closing on the building,” Sikora said. “So now we have another opportunity in the building.”
Commission President Tom Bloom said he was told more money was offered to locate the Sparkz factory in Ravenswood.
“I have mixed feelings on this. I’m totally for funding it. It’s just a frustration that we worked hard on bringing a business in. We thought we had them and things happened,” Bloom said. “Unfortunately, it’s very frustrating. I spent six months of my time working on this area. I do have to say thank you to the state. They did offer another business in. So I will say that. Not the one that we wanted. That’s all I can say.”
A representative of Sparkz said an official announcement is coming in late September.
As for the business that is coming to Collins Ferry Road, that too has to be kept under wraps for now.
“The entity that’s coming in there is really neat and hopefully we’ll be able to talk about that in more detail. It’s a new technology and it’s something that has the potential for a lot of growth and employment and revenue to the county and the state,” Sikora said.
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