(Publisher’s Note: In a series of articles in 2023, LEDE News touched upon several aspects of the current demolition of the former Ohio Valley Medical Center campus in Center Wheeling. The demolition, a project that’s expected to take more than a year to complete, is taking place currently with a lot of the structures being taken down from the inside at this time. The West Tower, the building that was home to the most recent general hospital, is set to be the final building to vanish. The cost of the demolition has been estimated to cost a little more than $7 million and the City of Wheeling and WVU Health Systems have partnered to cover the expense. Once the land is clear, WVU Health Systems will construct a new multi-million dollar regional cancer center.)
The first few steps have been taken, including the negotiations, the media presentation, and the planning beyond the memorandum of understanding that the Ohio Valley Medical Center would be flattened and replaced.
The “How”, however, is now what officials with the City of Wheeling and WVU Health Services are finalizing, and Step One – asbestos examination – is complete.
The price tag, though, is 34 times more expensive than the four environmental studies conducted for the next set of residential demolitions in the city of Wheeling.
“When we do a demolition on a house or a building in the city, the asbestos abatement reports on those projects range between $3,000-$5,000,” explained Wheeling City Manager Bob Herron. “The asbestos abatement report on this OVMC project was $170,000, but it’s complete and the numbers came back in line where we thought they would.
“It’s going to be a major undertaking that I believe will draw interest from national demolition contractors because we are talking about 800,000 square feet of buildings,” he said. “We’ve received environmental reports on all of the buildings and we have submitted those reports to WVU-HS, so once all of that information is processed they will have the ability to get started with what they need to do before the structures start coming down.”
And that task is the responsibility of the soon-to-be new property owner.
“The way the agreement is set up – and they agreed to this – is that we transfer the property to their name by the end of March and then they demolish all of the buildings,” Herron explained. “They agreed to do it that way because that’s what they have done before. That’s why they agreed to it so quickly. They know exactly how to go about it.
“Once that agreement is in place, there will be benchmarks for accomplishing this, this, and this,” he said. “It will be up to WVU Medicine to abate the asbestos and tear the buildings down, and I know they are already gearing up to do those things as quickly as possible.”
New Lives to Save
It started inside a small, house-like structure in Center Wheeling and expanded over a century into a medical facility able to treat the body and the mind. The six buildings are connected by basements and staircases that create passageways only long-time employees had figured while fighting for lives.
On a daily basis, more than 800 employees crossed each other’s paths at a hero’s pace, but then there was that last day back in September 2019 when it all stopped and the hospital itself was forced to flatline and could not be resuscitated. Even after the City of Wheeling acquired the campus, the West and South towers were silent, the East and Hillcrest buildings were 90 percent vacant, and the two-section nurse’s residence buildings were measured for demolition.
Only the Hillcrest and Education and Administration buildings were active while city employees were guiding tours for anyone and everyone who wanted to kick the proverbial tires, but after more than a year full of fruitless efforts, City Manager Bob Herron began an extended conversation with the top executives of WVU Medicine’s parent company, WVU Health Services.
Those talks resulted in a multi-million-dollar, 90,000-square-foot regional cancer center that will hire at least 150 employees within a five-year timeframe. It will take, according to the city manager, between 18 months and two years to remove the six buildings and their foundations.
“WVU Health Systems will land lease the property for 30 years, and that comes with a building commission bond issue that WVU will pay for as a part of this deal,” Herron explained. “That is the next step and it’s currently being negotiated down to the final details. It’s all been discussed and agreed upon, but now it’s time to put it down on paper to make it all reality.
“Our representation is Steptoe & Johnson because this will translate into a bond, and they are working with the attorney for WVU-HS. That is ongoing and I am hopeful the lease will be completed by late January so it can be presented to City Council,” he said. “Our target date to transfer the property to WVU-HS is March 1 and then the demolition process begins.”
