He likely will be retired by the time the ribbon-cutting takes place, but that doesn’t stop Wheeling Fire Chief Larry Helms from continuing his preparation for the department’s first new headquarters since 1976.
Helms, the fire department’s chief for the past 12 years, said city officials have narrowed their search for land to a pair of properties for a $5 million, 30,000-square foot HQ in East Wheeling. Firefighters from the HQ station cover the South Wheeling, Mozart, Center Wheeling, and East Wheeling neighborhoods, as well as responding with Ladder 1 when called.
“I am hoping that the city will be able to acquire one of them by the end of the year,” Helms explained. “I feel both of the properties are good locations, and as soon as the purchase is completed, we’ll be able to move forward.
“It’s taking a little bit of time, and I can understand that property owners want to get what they can,” he said. “Plus, the city has a lot of due diligence to complete about what it would cost to get the land ready for the construction of a new fire headquarters.”
Funds for the acquisition are available from the User Fee the city of Wheeling began collecting at the beginning of 2020. The fee, approved by council in August 2019, is paid each week by every employee of a business located within the municipality, and the funds were earmarked for the city’s public safety agencies and infrastructure.
“It is something I have wanted to do, but it’s also something that other chiefs wanted to do,, but they weren’t afforded the opportunity,” Helms said. “When Cliff Sligar was chief, he recognized the need for a new headquarters, so this project has been in the idea phase for more than 30 years.
“We are hopeful that by January we will have property access, and then construction would begin in the spring with a six-month build time,” he said. “That would depend on the contractors, too, but if the current plan works out, the new headquarters could be constructed by the end of 2021.”
What Should Citizens Expect?
The department’s fire houses in Warwood, South Wheeling, Elm Grove, Woodsdale, South Wheeling, and in North Wheeling will be renovated inside and out.
Station 2 in North Wheeling, the busiest and most diverse in the city, is included because those firefighters and EMS personnel will not consolidate when the new headquarters opens for business. Instead, only those assigned to HQ will move from the current location on the Market Street level of the Center Wheeling Parking Garage.
“Based on the one-story floor plan, we would need about an acre of land,” Helms said. “We do like the layout, and if we limit it to one story then we keep the construction costs down but still get what we have needed for a lot of years. Plus, with it being one floor, it is automatically ADA compliant, and there won’t be a need for elevators.
“We’re planning for seven truck bays, and we’ll have all of the vehicles that we will need at that location,” he continued. “We’ll also be able to collect all of the equipment and put those things in one place instead of that equipment being scattered all over the city. Our staff will be available to the public, too, without people having to walk through the areas where the trucks are.”
Better Not Combined
Two proposals released by Mayor Glenn Elliott the past two years involved a public safety building initially in downtown Wheeling and then along 19th St. in East Wheeling.
The first was a $20 million, multi-story project housing both departments that was rejected by voters in November 2018, and the second, a $14.5 million development on a three-acre, dilapidated piece of property, was negated by the city’s purchase of the former campus of the Ohio Valley Medical Center.
Instead, its solidarity is for both the police and fire departments, and that’s just fine with Chief Helms.
“When the city acquired the Valley Professional Building and decided to renovate it for the police department, I though it was a great idea for them,” he said. “With the planned construction of a new fire department headquarters, I think it will all work out to benefit both departments. If both departments would have been together in a public safety building, we did see some situations that could have been problematic.
“This way, both departments will have the space that’s really needed, and it also gives us opportunities for training and education areas that otherwise we would not have had,” the fire chief said. “It’s going to be a very good facility for the fire department for many years to come, and trust me; it’s long overdue.”
