The hospital was closed, more than 800 employees lost their jobs, and no one knew what was next for the Ohio Valley Medical Center property in Center Wheeling.
For the first time in anyone’s memory, the OVMC campus was lightless.
Alecto Healthcare had purchased all operations owned by Ohio Valley Health Services and Education Corporation in early 2017, but the California healthcare company bailed after two years of operation and the property owner – Medical Properties Trust (MPT) – was silent. That’s when security teams began patrolling the 800,000 square feet of property in Center Wheeling, including the seven primary structures and the small maintenance and utility buildings.
“Alecto announced their plans to close a few weeks before, so we did know it was coming,” explained Wheeling City Manager Bob Herron. “But that was a lot of property to be sitting empty, and no one had a plan for it.”
But the public had questions.
Could the West Tower become a hospital again? Might someone transition the South Tower into an office building? Could the sanctuary that was Hillcrest reopen? Would a homeless organization take it over to house the unsheltered?
Or would those buildings rot in place like so many others thanks to the weak property laws in the Mountain State?
“In all likelihood, someone would have bought the buildings (during state auction) for the scrap, but after it was all stripped, then what? We knew the property was an important piece of Center Wheeling and downtown areas,” Herron said. “That’s when the conversations started, and when (Ward 6 Councilman) Dave (Palmer) suggested contacting MPT about the Professional Building (on Chapline Street) for o ur new police headquarters.
“When we heard back form MPT, they offered the whole campus,” he explained. “That’s when we really started taking about what was possible.”
And that’s exactly what the City of Wheeling did following a 6-0 vote by five council members and former mayor Glenn Elliott on June 16, 2019. Ken Imer, the former Ward 2 representative, was the only council member not present for the historic vote.
“I believe it was wise for our Council at that time to vote in favor of taking possession of the property,” Herron said. “It was clearly in the best interest to step up and take it over to take control of the property’s future because we didn’t, there’s no telling what would have happened to those four acres.
“We really did want to market those buildings and reinvent that campus with private developers taking it over,” the city manager explained. “Kurt Zende was our economic development specialist and the Centre Market manager at the time, and he did tour after tour with people who wanted to come take a look. And we did have some interest, but it became very clear to us very quickly that redeveloping it would be a monumental task if not impossible.”
A Tradition of Healthcare
It was marketed by the city with a website titled “22nd Street Square” and tour after tour was taken by a plethora of people.
Some parties were interested in the location and others only wanted to see the interiors of the buildings for nostaglia’s sake.
Helping Heroes operated in the Hillcrest Building. The City of Wheeling stationed some employees in the Education & Administration Building. The Family Resource Network set up shop in the South Tower. And the defunct Roxby Labs performed Covid testing out of the East Tower, otherwise known as the original Ohio Valley General Hospital, for nearly a year.
But now the plan calls for WVU Health System, the parent company of WVU Medicine, is preparing to construct a $122 million regional cancer treatment and research center.
“We knew early on that WVU Medicine had some interest in the property, but they told us that if they moved on it that they would want the whole campus demolished,” Herron said. “That’s why we tried to keep it alive and develop it as it was, but it would have taken an incredible amount of work and millions (of dollars) to rehab those buildings.
“But now we know the cancer center is the best possible development that could have happened on that property because the tradition of excellent health care on the site will now continue for another 100 years,” he insisted. “The development will also do a lot of positive things for the Center Wheeling area as far as future development and housing.”
F.R. Beinke Wrecking Inc. cleared the land of all structures and the WVU Medicine Regional Cancer Center is expected to open in October 2028.
“They repeated that the whole site would need demolished for the new cancer center,” Herron recalled. “So, we made that deal within a year of acquiring the campus. Those buildings had a lot of challenges, that’s for sure.
“WVU Medicine will soon be building the regional cancer center, and the project will include a beautiful building, parking, and a lot of attractive green space. And from what we’ve been told, the project is still scheduled to begin next year, and from the beginning the construction will generate hundreds of jobs. In the end of it all, we’ll have an incredibly valuable health care facility that will serve not only the people in Wheeling, but people the entire region.”
Block After Block
Demolitions have been common in Wheeling over the past decade with residential and commercial structures crashing to the ground in the name of public safety in some areas and for future development in others.
The razing of the Center Market Parking Garage, though, was necessary because of structural deficiencies that developed since its opening in 1976, but now Herron, Zende, and Mayor Denny Magruder and his Council of six have decisions to make for the vacant lot across Chapline Street from the former OVMC campus.
“We understand that the people will WVU Medicine expect the cancer center to have between 50-55,000 patient visits each year, and we know that means family members and friends will need somewhere to go during their loved one’s treatments,” Herron said. “We have a great area with Centre Market just down the street from where the center will be, but we also have an opportunity for something new right there along Market Street.”
At the time Alecto shuttered OVMC nearly six years ago, the businesses inside and around Centre Market’s two “houses” realized significant revenue reductions, but Herron hopes the new cancer center and whatever might be developed on the west side of Chapline Street will help return the foot traffic along Market Street and Lane C.
“We have talked with the people at Wheeling Hospital about ideas that they may have for businesses that are needed near a facility like what we’ll see there, and we’re still in the process of looking for a developer for that property,” the city official explained. “There have been a lot of ideas offered by residents in that area, and we know we want it to fit in that area of the city.
“Centre Market is a very busy business district for our city, and we know this project is going to add a lot more,” Herron added. “That area lost a lot of traffic when the hospita closed, but we expect this new facility will bring some of that back.”
