Jul. 15—BLUEFIELD — A major manufacturing firm that is bringing hundreds of high-paying jobs to Bluefield now owns property at Exit 1 where its plant is located.

Omnis Building Technologies has closed on the land at Exit 1 where its 150,000-square-foot facility is located. That makes the company a land owner and tax payer in the city, according to Bluefield Mayor Ron Martin.

"Does everyone know the Onmis transaction closed?" Martin asked his fellow board members at last week's city board meeting. "They bought the property."

Jim Spencer, executive director of the Bluefield Economic Development Authority, said the transaction was approved by the city board during its June meeting, and then "a few hours" later BEDA sold the property at fair market value to Omnis.

"It's good news that they bought the property instead of renting it," Martin said. "And they will be paying taxes too."

More than 1,500 applications for employment have been received from area residents interested in working at the new Omnis Building Technologies plant. The company is aiming for a fourth quarter soft opening later this year.

All of the applications received are being considered for multiple categories, including managers, supervisors, daily shift workers and engineers, according to an earlier report from Jonathan Hodson, president of Omnis Building Technologies Bluefield, LLC.

The plant will manufacture Composite Insulated Building units that will be used to create residential homes. The plan is to build 3,000 housing units a year in Bluefield. Components constructed at Omnis will be shipped and then assembled on-site to make pre-designed homes, according to the company. Once delivered, they are turn-key homes.

Spencer said the renewed hope that Omnis Building Technologies and Intuit have brought to Bluefield has inspired BEDA to create a new marketing video for the city.

He hopes to emulate a 2014 video that promoted Albany, Ga.

Spencer played that Georgia video to the city board members during Tuesday's meeting.

"Thinking about Omnis now and Intuit now, watch this two-minute video," Spencer said, adding that there was no narrator or voice overs, simply "all smiles" from those who were featured.

Spencer said the goal is to create a similar "We are Bluefield" video.

"We want to start building a data base to put together a similar video," Spencer said. "I think it could be a real good marketing tool for the things the city is doing and also with BEDA. As you can see we weren't really ready in 2014, but now we've got some really neat things we can put in this video. We could go on the offense with marketing. We want to start getting footage and build a database to do that."

— Contact Charles Owens at cowens@bdtonline.com

— Contact Charles Owens at cowens@bdtonline.com. Follow him @BDTOwens