HQ offers wide Range of benefits

By Michael Bradwell, Business editor, mbradwell@observer-reporter.com

When Range Resources employees began moving into their new regional headquarters building at 3000 Town Center Boulevard in Southpointe II last month, they were entering a building that reverses a longterm trend in office planning.

According to John Applegath, vice president of Range Resources’ Southern Marcellus Shale Division, the new $30 million building, which was designed by Southpointe II lead developer Horizon Properties and built by P.J. Dick, will give almost all present and future employees their own offices. The move represents an about-face from the open, cubicle-based buildings that are commonplace today.

But with a workforce that includes geologists, landsmen and oil and gas engineers – Range is the only gas producer in the area with a full-scale technical team under one roof – Applegath believed a little more quiet was needed.

“We found that with technical folks, it was difficult for them to concentrate” in an open-office setting, he said.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t some impressive open spaces within the five-story, 180,000square-foot building. Visitors are greeted by a large reception desk and adjacent waiting area. The main floor also features Southpointe’s second unit of Club Bistro, which is open to the public and offers deli sandwiches, wraps, salads and soups.

The new building currently houses about 350 people, was designed for 450 but can go to 550 without any modifications, said Applegath, who planned the layout. The employees were moved from offices in Southpointe’s Solutions Consulting and Plaza II buildings.

Range is coming off a banner production year, announcing in mid-December that it doubled its natural gas production from the Marcellus shale in 2011, at 400 million cubic feet per day, against 200 Mmcf for 2010.

But the production increase came with greater efficiency, Applegath said, noting that while Range will add more people to its headquarters, it will take a little longer than originally projected.

“As more people have become more efficient, it takes fewer to do the same tasks,” he said. “We won’t hit our (hiring) numbers as fast as we thought.”

But as bigger volumes of gas are produced in the future, he said, “we will need a lot of local talent,” something the company is already thinking about.

Applegath noted that Range has preliminary plans for building an annex at the 13-acre Town Center site when it begins to reach capacity in the new building.

He said the new regional hedquarters, which Range is leasing from Horizon Properties for the next 11 years, represents a bricks-and-mortar commitment for a company that intends to be working here for a long time. It also has an option to purchase the building at the end of the lease.

During a tour of the building last month, Applegath showed a first-floor auditorium with seating for 215that will give the company the ability to address large groups. The auditorium opens to a large “pre-function” room equipped with easily moveable furniture and a separate caterers’ kitchen. Just outside is a large patio equipped with a gas grill and outdoor gas fire pit.

Beyond its ability to handle large groups for training and presentations, the new building offers Range other efficiencies that simply weren’t available as the company’s operations grew rapidly after it opened a one-person, 1,500-square-foot office in Southpointe in early 2007. Also located on the first floor is a large file room for storing copies of all of the company’s leases and other documents.

“We’ve got a lot of records to keep,” Applegath said, adding that each document is backed up with a copy that’s stored at Range’s Fort Worth headquarters.

The building also groups employees who perform similar functions.

“The groups that work closest together are now on the same floor,” he said. Each floor has a main conference room, with four departments on each floor.

One of the biggest efficiency leaps comes with the building’s Cisco Systems- equipped teleconferencing center that can link the regional headquarters building here with Range’s Fort Worth, Texas, headquarters and its other offices.

Applegath demonstrated a system that enables executives and managers from across the country to meet face to face without leaving their buildings, adding that it will help the company greatly reduce travel expenses.

He said the building’s many hightech and efficiency-based amenities were planned “based on what we have at Fort Worth and what we wish we had at Fort Worth.”

The speed at which the building was completed won praise from Applegath.

“I can’t say enough about the greater Pittsburgh building trades,” he said. “There’s no way this building could be built someplace else this rapidly. Everybody knew what they were supposed to do; we didn’t have to fuss about anything.”

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