Weirton, WV — Bryce Custer, SIOR, CCIM, MRICS and managing director of NAI Ohio River Corridor announced the establishment of a new commercial real estate services firm focused on serving the site selection and commercial real estate requirements associated with the emerging petrochemical and energy services industries in West VA, Southwestern PA and Eastern Ohio. The new firm is part of NAI Global, a global commercial real estate brokerage firm with over 400 offices worldwide. In Ohio, NAI Ohio River Corridor is under the brokerage firm NAI Spring based in Canton, OH. In West Virginia and Pennsylvania, NAI Ohio River Corridor is under the brokerage firm JJ Guida Airport Realty in Weirton WV and Burgettstown, PA. Custer has been a real estate broker and consultant to the petrochemical and energy services industry in the NAI Spring office prior to opening Weirton office and he still has clients in Stark and Carroll County, OH. Weirton is about 36 miles due west from Pittsburgh, PA and 86 miles southwest of Canton. NAI Global has an office in Pittsburgh – NAI Pittsburgh. The Ohio River streams westward out of Pittsburgh and forms a natural border between West Virginia and Southern Ohio. That region of the country, which is rich in natural gas (wet and dry) is in the process of converting from a “rust belt” area of the U.S. to a petrochemical, plastics and energy services hub due to the massive shale formations in the region. “The Marcellus and Utica shale formation has created thousands of jobs and billions of dollars for infrastructure investments in the Tri-State area and it is only the tip of the iceberg,” said Custer. “There are billions more of private equity being invested in production plants now and it is creating many opportunities to repurpose aging and shuttered manufacturing facilities into new gas and plastics processing plants. Further, with manufacturing and job creation, it is spurring demand for other commercial real estate product types in addition to industrial facilities, including hotels, retail and offices,” Custer added. Last year Custer completed a sale/leaseback involving the Calgary, Alberta natural gas and reciprocating gas compression, equipment and services company Bidell, which leased a 100,000 s/f industrial facility in Weirton. In that transaction, Frontier Industrial bought the property from the Luxembourg-based steel conglomerate, ArcelorMittal, then leased the facility to Bidell.