FINDLAY — Amid a gathering of company executives, employees, and local dignitaries, Marathon Petroleum Corp. entered a new phase in its brief history on Thursday with the official grand opening of a grandiose new headquarters building for its MPLX LP subsidiary, part of a $90-million expansion of the oil refining company’s footprint in downtown Findlay.
“Our headquarters has undertaken quite a transformation,” said Marathon’s Chief Executive Gary Heminger as he stood at a podium in one of the building’s many conference rooms.
The initial plan was to build a home for the 300 employees of MPLX, the limited partnership formed in 2012 to run Marathon’s more than 6,100 miles of pipelines. But Mr. Heminger said when MPLX was formed and in need of its own building, he never imagined that during the time it took to build the five-story complex that Marathon Petroleum would nearly quadruple in size through mergers and acquisitions.
But Marathon is on a growth trend and the campus expansion mirrors that. “We’re very proud of this [new] facility and we’re not going to stop here. We’re going to continue to invest in the community,” Mr. Heminger said.
The new MPLX building, which employees occupied in July, is 120,000 square feet and complements Marathon’s existing headquarters next door architecturally.
Mr. Heminger said he chose a team of employees and asked them to select the brick and other materials that cover the building’s exterior. He told them he wanted something similar but different.
“My hat’s off to them,” the CEO said. “They did a great job.”
Inside, the new MPLX headquarters are multiple conference rooms, training rooms, and the heart of MPLX — its state of the art operations center.
The center has 70 analysts who control the flow of oil and other liquids through the pipeline network. They sit or stand at complex consoles round the clock, and Marathon had special lighting installed to help keep workers awake. The light turns from white to bluish as the day turns into night.
As part of the overall expansion, besides the MPLX building, Marathon constructed a 50,000 square foot administrative building that opened in August, 2015, two parking garages that opened over the last two years, and it is building a $20 million Hancock Hotel on the campus setting that will open in fall of 2017.
But the crown jewel in the project is new “Marathon Green,” an open space in front of the MPLX building that has trees, tables, benches, and other aesthetic features so that employees can enjoy the outdoors.
Findlay Mayor Lydia Mihalik said Marathon is rejuvenating the city. “You said, ‘Yes, we believe in Findlay,’ and [the campus] was the catalyst for many things in the community,” she said.
Contact Jon Chavez at: jchavez@theblade.com or 419-724-6128.
First Published September 2, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
