Construction on the $6.5 million Wheeling Police HQ is progressing on schedule and about a third of the project has been completed so far. The new Police HQ which broke ground in September 2020, is intended to replace one of the previous Valley Professional Buildings that used to be part of the Ohio Valley Medical Center complex(OVMC).
The City leaders decided on transforming this current Valley Professional Building, located at 2115 Chapline St. into the new Wheeling Police HQ, after the city obtained most of the structures on the OVMC grounds in 2020. The new 30,000-square-foot facility will become the new operations base of the Wheeling Police. Once this new building is completed in Summer, the Wheeling Police Department will be relocated from the 4,500-square-foot confined space which they currently occupy within the City-County Building.
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The police headquarters has been running its operations since 1959 from this cramped space inside the City-County Building, located at 1500 Chapline St. downtown, and as of late, the authorities have determined that the division has long since exceeded the available space at this building. This decision led to the ongoing renovation project for the new multi-level Wheeling Police HQ, which will feature a large evidence unit, rooms for civilian staff, a sally port entrance training facilities, meeting spaces, administrative offices and other amenities.
Wheeling Police HQ renovation project to be funded through the city’s service fee
Financing for the Wheeling Police HQ renovation project is being raised through the city’s new service fee or user fee program, which was set up since 2019 and has been used to collect $2 per week from every working individual within the limits of the City. The construction is being managed by the Waller Corporation of Washington, who were awarded the general contract by the city, and the project’s designs were handled by the M&G Architects and Engineers of Wheeling. Robert Herron, the Wheeling City Manager confirmed that the project was still on schedule and would most likely be finished by August of 2022. He also pointed out that material shortages and other construction related delays have not affected the project’s timeline, despite the global pandemic which has impacted construction projects across the nation.
