Wheeling Fire Department May Need Temporary Home Amid Delays With New Headquarters
Eric Ayres Trending
WHEELING -- Delays in the completion of the new $9 million Wheeling Fire Department Headquarters in East Wheeling will likely cause the city to relocate the current headquarters to a temporary location in the coming months until the new facility is ready for occupancy.
Progress on the new building along 17th Street in East Wheeling had been moving along at a healthy clip for several months until issues arose last fall related to payment of subcontractors. The general contractor for the project -- &build, a PCS Company, based in Cleveland -- saw a number of its subcontractors walk off the job site in October in the wake of payment issues.
The original completion date for the new Wheeling Fire Department Headquarters had been at the end of 2023, but delays surrounding the work stoppage and subcontractor issues made that deadline impossible.
While the general contractor and some subcontractors have reportedly been on site working inside the pre-cast walls of the new building before the holidays, the work toward completion has not been in full swing.
"The new completion date - assuming all goes as planned - is the end of April," Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron said on Friday. "The city plans take all appropriate action and remedies under the provisions of the project contract."
As of Friday, the issues surrounding the payment snags with subcontractors at the new fire headquarters site appeared to be resolved.
"The fire headquarters contractor has represented that they will begin full operations on Jan. 15," Herron said. "A project escrow account was set up and funded the first of December, and subcontractors have been systematically getting paid."
To complicate matters, the construction delays have disrupted the timeline for a smooth transition from the current Fire Headquarters to the new facility because of multimillion-dollar demolition schedules that are unfolding over in Center Wheeling. This includes plans to demolish the Center Wheeling Parking Garage - which houses the current location for the fire department headquarters.
WVU Medicine awarded a $6.8 million contract to F.R. Beinke Wrecking Inc. of New Jersey for the demolition of the seven remaining buildings on the former Ohio Valley Medical Center campus. F.R. Beinke is slated to dive into the bulk of its demolition work at the site beginning on Monday and continuing for the next 10 months or so.
The Center Wheeling Parking Garage has been closed to the public since April 2022, and supports have been placed through parts of the structure, as the fire department continues to operate out of the lower level on the Market Street side. Plans to dismantle the parking garage had been carefully coordinated to offer a window of a few months time to move the fire headquarters from the garage to the new facility, but Herron said the construction delays at the worksite for the new headquarters have thrown a wrench in those plans.
Last fall, the city awarded a $1,638,000 contract to Reclaim Company LLC of Fairmont for decommissioning and demolition of the Center Wheeling Parking Garage, to be charged to the city's Tax Increment Financing (TIF) District fund. This contract will include dismantling of the connecting sky bridge or enclosed walkway above Chapline Street between the garage and the adjacent former hospital building's West Tower. Portions of this section of Chapline Street are expected to be closed to traffic while demolition commences.
"The parking structure dismantling project is slated to begin on March 4," Herron said. "Delaying that project would put the current bid - which is an excellent bid - in serious jeopardy and could create unintended delay claims."
Because of the nature of the structure and the proximity to other buildings in the neighborhood, the parking garage will be taken apart and removed piece by piece, and this should take a year to complete.
By the time the dismantling of the parking garage begins, the current fire department headquarters will need to be out. Fire officials are currently exploring options to relocate equipment and personnel to other stations in the city during what is expected to be a window of at least two months or more between the beginning of the parking garage demolition and when the new facility becomes available
"Fire department management has been involved and aware of this situation and process from the beginning," Herron said. "They are working on temporary relocation plans for headquarters for the time while their new building is being completed."
Representatives from &build could not be reached for comment as of Friday evening.