POINT PLEASANT, W.Va. — There will soon be a noticeable change at the Monarch Compute Campus construction site north of Point Pleasant.
Nscale Site Manager Jason Bechtle says vertical construction will begin soon on the site where data center buildings are planned.
“We’re continuing with civil work and nearing the point where we’ll be going vertical with construction,” Bechtle told MetroNews. “Everything is going well, hitting those milestones and continuing to move forward.”
The massive site currently employs hundreds of construction workers with more to come, Bechtle said.
“Last week we had around 900 employees that’s working here on Project Monarch between the pipeline and all of our workers here on site. We’ll be knocking on the door of a thousand soon,” he said.
Plans are to possibly double that emploment number by the end of the year.
“It could jump up to a couple of thousand as we continue civil construction but get really advanced in the vertical construction,” Bechtle said.
Nscale is hiring from local union shops.
“We are blessed with the talent and the knowledge and the skilled-trades from our local union halls,” Bechtle said. “They’ve been able to supply us what we need.”
He said the goal is to keep hiring local and then hopefully bring more people in who had to look elsewhere for jobs previously.
“Bringing them back on,” Bechtle said. “It’s definitely something we’re keeping track of but as of right now we’re doing really welll.”