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Gov. Jim Justice and dignitaries from across the state were in Bluefield Tuesday for the official groundbreaking to welcome Omnis Building Technologies to the I-77 Exit 1 area.

Gov. Jim Justice and dignitaries from across the state were in Bluefield Tuesday for the official groundbreaking to welcome Omnis Building Technologies to the I-77 Exit 1 area.

Gov. Jim Justice was in Bluefield Tuesday for the official groundbreaking to welcome Omnis Building Technologies to the I-77 Exit 1 area.

The $40 million,150,000-square-foot facility manufactures revolutionary housing, will employ about 300 and be located beside the Bluefield Area Transit headquarters on John Nash Boulevard.

“What you have accomplished in Bluefield is unbelievable,” Justice said of the economic development in this area after being “dealt a bad hand” with the turndown related to the decline of the coal industry. “You dug in and made things happen … Here we are with another incredible announcement in West Virginia.”

Justice called the new manufacturing facility, which uses concrete technology and can build a house in about two days, “amazing,” and said it will revolutionize the housing industry.

Omnis Technologies President Jonathan Hodson was also on hand for the groundbreaking.

“We are so grateful to be here with everyone today and Gov. Justice,” he said. “A lot of people were involved in this project.”

Hodson said Justice has helped make West Virginia a more business-friendly state .

“It has helped make an easy transition to the Mountain State,” he said of moving from California.

The process started over a year ago, he said, and everyone, especially Jim Spencer, Bluefield’s economic development director and head of the Bluefield Economic Development Authority (BEDA), on the state and local levels made it all happen.

“They have worked non-stop in their efforts to help move this project along,” he said.

Hodson said Spencer and the BEDA provided the “hard work and vision for Bluefield” to give the needed boost.

The facility will produce more than 3,000 affordable homes a year, he said, and “change lives for the better.”

Homes are energy-efficient, pre-engineered systems made up of Concrete Insulated Building Units (CIBU) that are shipped and then assembled on-site to make pre-designed homes. Once delivered, they are turn-key.

“I love Bluefield and I love what I do,” Spencer said, thanking all of those who helped see the project through.

Many other dignitaries also attended the event.

Contact Charles Boothe at cboothe@bdtonline.com

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Saturday, 11 a.m., at the Dudley Memorial Chapel in Bluefield, Va. Entombment will follow at Grandview Memory Mausoleum.

Saturday, 7 p.m., at Cravens-Shires Funeral Home in Bluewell.

Saturday, 1 p.m., at Wallace & Wallace Funeral Home in Lewisburg.

Saturday, noon, at the Smith Family Cemetery on Smith Ridge near Jewell Ridge, Va.

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