Members of Wheeling’s City Council will vote this coming Tuesday to authorize City Manager Bob Herron to purchase nearly three acres in East Wheeling for $150,000 even though the parcels are no longer needed for the construction of a public safety building for the police and fire departments, according to the meeting agenda released this morning in the municipality’s web site.
The agenda item is listed under “Original Propositions,” and the virtual meeting is scheduled to begin at noon.
“I feel we have the opportunity to acquire this property at a very good price that I think is at a significant discount from the original price, and then we would have control of the property and eliminate the blight,” the city manager said on The Watchdog (98.1 FM WKKX and 97.7 FM WVLY) Thursday afternoon. “And then we would have a developable site for the future that already has access to all necessary utilities.
“It makes a ton of sense to do this,” Herron said. “The time frame is fast approaching.”
Always on the Table
The original deal with the property owner, Frank Calabrese, included a $150,000 payment and possibly another in the amount of $195,000 if the city was awarded a federal brownfield grant to clear the land of any soil contamination left behind by decades of industrial businesses operating at the location. Herron did confirm the 2.75 acres would not be used to construct a new fire department headquarters.
“The 19th Street property has never been off the table, but using it for a public safety building is because of the acquisition of the Valley Professional Center for the police department,” Herron explained. “That’s no longer the focus, but it could be other things as far as development or other city operations. At this point, I do not envision that property being the spot for a stand-alone fire department headquarters.
“After we acquired the OVMC campus and began planning the transition of the Valley Professional Center into the police department, it freed us up to concentrate on stand-alone fire headquarters,” he said. “We have a couple of sites in mind, and once we know everything that is needed for the facility, we’ll move forward with making contact with the property owners.”
Blight Is Too Polite … It’s An Ugly Gateway
The property rests in full view for travelers exiting W.Va. Route 2 for 16th Street in downtown Wheeling, and one large building is missing entire banks of windows. Herron said Calabrese, who serves as the chair of the city’s Human Rights Commission, has cooperated with the city in the past, but the structure has further deteriorated with no repairs performed.
Not only would that structure be demolished with a couple of others, but the parcels also are covered with thousands of bricks scattered during previous razings. A portion of the acreage, located adjacent to Big Wheeling Creek, is in the flood plain and would have needed raised by eight feet if the city were moving forward with the public safety building. Now, though, that work will not take place if the city acquires the land.
“I know there are emotions associated with this (purchase); I know there are emotions associated with the property owner; and there are emotions associated with the price; and emotions associated with the condition of the property, but at the end of the day, when the property is acquired and the demolitions take place, it is far less expensive than some other projects that we have undertaken,” Herron explained. “And it’s almost three acres of prime development property in the center of the city.
“City Council just voted in favor of leveling liens on properties that have been allowed to deteriorate to the point that those properties have become a public safety concern,” he said. “The same could be done with the 19th Street property, but if the property owner doesn’t cooperate, the hammer that the city has to clean up a site like that is to tear the buildings down, and then place a lien on the property. That may make people feel good, but that also means that we still don’t own the property.”
Due Diligence
Herron has concentrated on the need for new headquarter for both first-responder agencies for more than two years, and Wheeling’s previous council members approved a User Fee to finance the solution. The fire department’s headquarters are located in the basement of the Center Wheeling Parking Garage, and the police department, with more than 80 employees, has been squeezed inside 4,600 square feet in the Ohio County Courthouse.
The first location was at the intersection of 10th and Market streets and involved a $19 million combined, three-story building that was rejected by voters in November 2018. Council’s focus then changed to a single-story, $14 million facility for both agencies on Calabrese’s 19th Street property until, of course, MPT Inc. offered the city the OVMC campus at minimal cost.
“We did believe that the 19th Street site would have been the ideal property for a combined public safety building because we needed almost three acres to build what we were going to need at that location. It was a one-story building that would have cost $14.5 million,” Herron said. “We have also gone through a lot of work on the environmental studies on that property and we know exactly what needs to be done, and it’s not nearly as expensive as we initially thought.
“That site needs a little bit of remediation that will cost about $100,000, but it is almost impossible to find three acres of flat land with full utilities in the city of Wheeling,” he said. “This way, we will own it, clean it up, and market it for future development.”
