The economic development specialist for the city of Wheeling described the traffic of interested parties as “brisk” on the former campus of the Ohio Valley Medical Center.
Kurt Zende, who also serves as the manager of Centre Market for City Manager Bob Herron, said the past few weeks he has guided possible tenants through one or more of the structures. Even the former nurses’ residence, once destined for demolition, has attracted interest.
“I have received a lot of inquiries about the building where Hillcrest operated for many years, and several entities have come to take a look at it,” Zende explained. “Some of the parties have walked through the nurses’ residence, too, and that’s why there are no immediate plans to take that building down. The interest in that building has been a pleasant surprise.
“I spend a good part of my days now showing people the properties they are interested in, so that’s been a big positive to this point,” he said. “One of the reasons for the interest is the parking that would be available to these groups. There’s a lot of space in the Center Wheeling Park Garage, and I think a lot of people find that convenience attractive.”
Large Spaces
The 36,000-square-foot Valley Professional Center soon will be renovated into the city new police headquarters in 2021, but the remaining 760,000 square feet that’s available seems to be an attraction, too, because it is the lone location the city currently owns with so much room.
The West Tower housed the actual hospital before it was shuttered by Alecto-West Virginia, and the East Tower was the original Ohio Valley General Hospital before it was transitioned to offices and storage areas.
“Another reason why we’re seeing so much interest is the large amount of square footage that is all under one roof,” Zende said. “There is more square footage that’s available here than the other locations we have in other parts of the city. Some of the folks who have been taking the tours are from this area, but about half of the interest has come from entities from out of the area.
“The reactions to the buildings have been very favorable,” he reported. “There has been a lot of interest in the South Tower, the former Hillcrest structure, and in the second floor of the Education and Administration building. Those seem to be the most popular, but we also have an entity looking at the first floor of the West Tower. So, yes, it’s been brisk since the Thanksgiving holiday, and I have more visits scheduled for this week and next week.”
33 Floors of Wide Open
Minus the building’s basements, the West Tower is the tallest on the campus at eight floors, the East Tower has seven, and the South Tower has six levels.
The two buildings that make up for the Nurses’ Residence are five floors high, and the former Hillcrest structure stands with four floors. The shortest is the Education and Administration Building at three floors, and Zende confirmed that the city officials continue to contemplate how they may utilize parts of that structure for public use.
Following the many conversations he has had with prospective tenants and potential buyers thus far, though, Zende believes the campus will not be the albatross that naysayers predicted when the city acquired it in June.
“I’m not saying that it’s not going to difficult, and it’s probably going to take some time, but the level of interest that’s been expressed has been encouraging to me,” he said. “For example, the entire former Hillcrest building likely will go to one tenant once Northwood moves to their new building in East Wheeling in July. We’ve been approached by a couple of entities that are interested in that entire structure, and that would be about 60,000 square feet.
“There is an interested party in the West Tower that has expressed that they would take the whole building and attract tenants for it themselves. Our original hope was that it would be that way for all six of the buildings, but we haven’t reached that point just yet,” he explained. “As for the South Tower, because of the way it is set up already, it would likely be on a floor-by-floor situation.”
