ELKINS — Economic development officials in both Tucker and Randolph counties say it is a “disappointment” that the much-hyped Virgin Hyperloop project has apparently gone down the tubes.

Virgin Hyperloop announced in 2020 that it had the technology to put passengers in floating pods and transport them in sealed vacuum tubes exceeding 600 miles per hour, speeds twice as fast as commercial jets, and four times faster than high speed trains.

The $500-million Hyperloop Certification Center was to be constructed on nearly 800 acres of land in Tucker and Grant counties. But news broke last week that the potential project was all but dead and that it will likely never be built in the Mountain State.

“We haven’t heard anything directly, but we saw some statements last week that confirmed the Hyperloop wasn’t going to happen,” Tucker County Development Authority Executive Director Steve Leyh told The Inter-Mountain Monday. “WVU’s Vantage Ventures was quoted as saying it wasn’t going to happen, so I’ll take that at face value.”

WVU and Marshall were in partnership with Virgin Hyperloop, who issued a statement saying the company has shifted its strategy to using its technology for logistics and cargo, instead of passengers.

“My understanding is that they are shifting from moving people to moving goods,” Leyh said. “The company has obviously been going through a lot of changes internally.

“You try not to get your hopes up with projects like this until they’re actually breaking ground. Obviously it’s a dissapointment, but we’re still doing well and things are humming along in Tucker County.”

Randolph County Development Authority Executive Director Robbie Morris said he understands why Virgin Hyperloop made the decision to shift its focus from people to products.

“It kind of makes sense, because the level of certification it would have taken to move people through a new piece of technology like that would be incredible,” Morris told The Inter-Mountain Monday. “So to prove the concept on pieces of drywall or a load of potatoes or something like that, versus trying it out on people, probably makes sense.”

Morris said that the worst thing about the project’s demise is the economic development opportunities the area has now lost.

“Not having the project in the foreseeable future is a disappointment, just for the amount of economic activity it would have brought to Tucker County and this entire region,” Morris said. “I think West Virginia can still take pride in knowing that we won the selection of where that facility would have gone, though. And it’s no fault of West Virginia as to why the project isn’t happening, it’s internal company decisions.

“It’s a disappointment, but there’s nothing for West Virginia to be ashamed of or hang our head about — we won that project in a competition with a lot of other states and that’s something to be proud of.”

Virgin Hyperloop picked West Virginia over 17 other states that wanted to host the testing hub.