Babcock & Wilcox signs Lynchburg lease to house reactor designers

Babcock & Wilcox is expanding its footprint in Lynchburg as part of its efforts to design its new mPower nuclear reactor.

The company has signed a lease on a 50,000-square-foot building in the city’s Lynchpin Industrial Center, B&W announced Thursday. The building could house as many as 300 engineers and designers, but 35 will work there initially.

The company says it needs this building in addition to its headquarters in downtown Lynchburg, which it has outgrown.

“We needed a facility that could quickly accommodate our expansion and be able to grow into the ultimate needs of the design team,” said B&W spokesman Jud Simmons in an e-mail.

“We worked with the city of Lynchburg to find a location that offered the infrastructure, parking and other necessities we needed. Out of everything that we looked at, this location was the best overall option,” he said.

Marjette Upshur, the city’s director of economic development, helped the firm find the site, which is owned by the Lynchburg Economic Development Authority.

“I think it’s a great vote of confidence for Lynchburg. It still is a great place to work, to attract employees and retain employees,” Upshur said.

The building is the former home of Simplimatic Automation, which moved to another location in the city this summer. City staff has worked with B&W to ensure that the building will meet its needs.

The company signed a two-year lease agreement with options to extend the lease until 2019, Upshur said.

“The B&W mPower reactor program is a long term initiative for us, so we sought a facility and a lease agreement that would allow for a multi-year design timeline and the continued growth of the engineering and design workforce,” Simmons said. “This will be an ongoing effort in Lynchburg.”

More than half of the 35 employees who will work in the Ramsey Place building will be from outside Lynchburg, Simmons said.

He said it is uncertain at what pace the expansion will continue, but “we are continuing to aggressively hire employees in this and other nuclear-related areas of our business at a steady rate.”

B&W, which employs about 2,500 people in Central Virginia, is competing with Areva, General Electric and other firms to build the first new nuclear reactor in the U.S. since the 1970s.

In June the company announced that it would design the mPower reactor. B&W says it will be cheaper and more quickly built than its competitors’ designs, and its modular design will allow utilities to add electricity generation capacity as needed.

With the mPower reactor, utilities can add capacity in increments of 125 megawatts, B&W says. By comparison, Areva’s Evolutionary Power Reactor design is rated at 1,600 megawatts.

“It’s one of the really great things about … existing businesses here. If they are nimble, then they move into other areas,” said Upshur. “This is as good as, if not better than, finding a new prospect from outside somewhere.”

Upshur said the city could reap many benefits as B&W’s work goes forward and as mPower reactors are licensed and built. “It could be unbelievable in terms of the types of jobs that will be available there.”

Simmons said B&W expects to submit its application for design approval to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in early 2012.

B&W is a subsidiary of McDermott International. B&W employs more than 20,000 people worldwide.