Unitil breaks ground on new headquarters

Utility picks Procon for 54,000-square-foot Exeter facility

October 9, 2019

NH Business Review Staff,

Taking part in the groundbreaking ceremony for Unitil’s new Exeter headquarters were state and local government officials Unitil executives and a representative from Procon, which is building the facility.

State, municipal and Unitil officials took part in a groundbreaking ceremony Oct. 3 to officially mark the start of construction of the utility’s new Seacoast headquarters in Exeter.

The new 54,000-square-foot facility, scheduled to open sometime in the summer of 2020, will bring several of Unitil’s operations under one roof: corporate headquarters, electric operations for the Seacoast, forestry services and the engineering and electronic dispatch center. Currently, those operations are housed in separate buildings in Hampton, Kensington and Portsmouth.

Manchester-based Procon is handling both the design and construction of the project.

Plans call for a two-story office building with a warehouse, garage space for bucket trucks and other operations vehicles, a vehicle wash bay, and workshop/lab spaces for other departments. Plans also include a designated testing and training room as well as a newly constructed outdoor pole training area.

Unitil President and CEO Tom Meissner said the new operations center’s location near major highways will allow it to better respond to customers in all of its communities.