EarthLink support center approaches completion

By mid-August, construction workers had gotten up a big portion of the steel framework for the 28,000-square-foot, two-story building that will house EarthLink’s customer support center at Project Intersection, a new business and industrial park in Norton.

Employees of the Atlanta-based high-speed internet service provider should be able to move into the building by March 2024, says Duane Miller, executive director of the LENOWISCO Planning District.

In late 2019, when EarthLink executives and Southwest Virginia officials began discussing building a customer support center for the company in the region, the project cost was projected to be $5.4 million. 

“After COVID, the cost of the building is closer to $11 million,” Miller says.

EarthLink will lease the building from the Lonesome Pine Regional Industrial Facilities Authority, a multijurisdictional organization. 

The company has operated out of a temporary facility in the Lonesome Pine Regional Business & Technology Park in Wise County since early 2022, according to Jonathan Belcher, executive director of the Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority.

So far, EarthLink has hired about 50 employees who take inbound sales calls and offer customer support, says EarthLink CEO Glenn Goad. He hopes to have hired 100 employees by the time the new building is ready; however, recruiting workers has been more challenging than expected. “The one thing I was surprised at is [the difficulty in] getting people to show up for interviews and/or jobs and stay in [those jobs],” says Goad.

Nevertheless, Goad, a Florida native who grew up witnessing the region’s strong work ethic firsthand during childhood visits to his father’s family in Wise County, feels confident EarthLink will be able to find the right employees given additional time. He predicts the call center will eventually house between 250 and 285 workers.

On June 30, EarthLink acquired Texas-based voice and data services provider One Ring Networks. Eventually, the Norton center will also house employees who offer support to those business customers, Goad says.

Before agreeing to the deal bringing a call center to Norton, EarthLink executives stressed the building would need to be completed within a 24-month period. That period ends in October.

Considering that the builders faced a steel shortage and supply chain hurdles, Miller is proud that the building will likely be ready by March, even though they missed the target by a few months.