By Tim Schooley and Paul J. Gough

January 23, 2022 - Southpointe's CONSOL Energy will soon be moving from the 1000 Consol Energy Drive office complex.

CONSOL Energy, the coal company, confirmed that it was moving its headquarters to 275 Technology Drive, the one-time headquarters of ANSYS, now owned by Chicago-based M&J Wilkow Ltd.

But the company declined further comment. It wasn’t clear when the move would take place, a task companies of all kinds are negotiating amid the changing circumstances of the pandemic.

Currently, CONSOL has one floor at 1000 Consol Energy Drive, and is expected to take almost 30,000 square feet of 275 Technology Drive, a two-story building that totals a little more than 107,000 square feet.

CONSOL has been in its current space since the then-much larger company moved from Upper St. Clair when this building was built for them by Horizon Properties Group, which still owns it. In the 15 years or so since it moved into the space, CONSOL has become a much smaller, coal-focused company with the natural gas production company separating into a separate public company called CNX Resources Corp. in 2017.

Sources began hearing of CONSOL Energy scouting in the market a few months ago last fall, as the coal company has worked to find a space to be fully independent of its natural gas counterpart.

CNX Resources, the main leaseholder of what is a more than 300,000-square-foot building at 1000 Consol Energy Drive, has also been itching to scale back its presence at the Southpointe II address.

The company began working with JLL early last year marketing more than 100,000 square feet of the building as available for sublease, seeking to appeal to companies revising their office needs amid the pandemic.

While the timing of CONSOL Energy's move remains unclear, it's a shift that should mean a changing identity for the property, originally built at a cost of more than $50 million and clad in black to demonstrate the original company's coal-producing heritage.

The company's move to 275 Technology Drive would bring another significant tenant to the property, which M&J Wilkow bought more than four years ago after ANSYS outgrew it and moved to a new headquarters at Zenith Ridge, also at Southpointe.

It will be two publicly traded companies at 275 Technology Drive.

Maryland-based Inovalon Holdings (NASDAQ: INOV), a tech firm in the health care niche, took a 40,000-square-foot space in the building in the summer of 2020, taking most of a floor there amid a renovation of the property.

Representatives of 275 Technology Drive were not immediately available for comment.

Matt Rodgers, a senior vice president for M&J Wilkow, said in an email that the CONSOL's decision to move to their new building "supports our decision to transform this former single-tenant building into a multi-tenant facility with modern amenities and community spaces."