City-County Building Work Could Start by Next Month | News, Sports, Jobs

photo by: Photo by Joselyn King

Ohio County officials are looking ahead to an estimated $12 million renovation to the City-County Building on Chapline Street in Wheeling. If all goes well, work could begin as soon as January.

Work to complete up to $12 million in upgrades to the City-County Building in Ohio County could start as soon as next month.

Bids already have been accepted for the work, and using those numbers the financing has been put into place, County Administrator Randy Russell said.

The Ohio County Building Authority was granted permission to approve up to $12 million for the upgrades. Truist bank will issue the first $10 million in non-taxable bonds, while Community Bank has agreed to issue up to another $2 million in taxable bonds if needed.

The bonds will get funded by the end of this week, Russell said.

“Our hope is that by the Jan. 3 meeting (of the Ohio County Commission), we will have reviewed the bids and the contractors who submitted the bids,” he added. “We will issue a notice to proceed and award a contract.”

After this, the successful contractor will start the process of ordering materials and obtaining necessary permits and approvals, Russell continued.

“We will start actual construction as soon as we know when these actual materials will come back in,” he said.

Supply chain issues continue to be a concern in construction, according to Russell. He said if the City-County Building renovation project does start in January, work should take about 20 months to complete.

Some creative efforts to keep government offices operating during that time will be in effect, he added.

“We are doing construction in an occupied building, so we have to move people out of their offices and put them into swing space,” Russell said. “Then we will have to do something ‘unusual’ in the hallways to make sure everyone is safe when they enter the building.”

Passersby may have noticed strapping supports placed on the pillars of the City-County Building along 16th Street. An ongoing issue at the building is that the granite pieces are pulling away from the structure.

“That is just a cautionary measure for the time being,” Russell said of the strapping. “We’re going to have an engineer look at those stone panels, because they are pulling away and sagging a bit. We want to make sure they don’t fall off.

“We will continue to look at it and decide whether if those have to stay, and (if they do) how do we get them repaired? We should know fairly soon.”

Planned construction on the City-County Building includes upgrades to the existing boiler system, while the chiller system on the roof will be scrapped and replaced with a water source heat pump system. The heat pumps will be placed in ceilings throughout the building, with each office having its own zoned heating and heat controls.

There also will be a lowering of ceilings – some of which are as high as 15 feet, according to Russell.