WHEELING – Work to replace the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system at the City-County Building in Wheeling continues, with more offices and workers there slated to be relocated in the coming weeks.

Melissa Marco, project coordinator for Ohio County, updated county commissioners this week on construction work.

Wheeling municipal offices located on the third floor of the City-County Building were the first moved to temporary locations last month. Employees are presently working out of interim offices in the former police station space on the first floor through the end of the year as the third-floor work continues.

“I don’t know what I was expecting, but it is definitely progressing,” Marco said of construction. “All of the ceilings are down. All of the duct work has been removed.

“As of Friday, we started installing large air-source heat pumps, and started reinstalling duct work.”

Up next, the Ohio County Circuit Clerk’s Office is slated to move out of its office on the fourth floor on Dec. 16. Workers will relocate into the temporary swing space location also on the fourth floor that was the former law library, she explained.

The Circuit Clerk’s Office had been expected to move out sooner, but the move required coordination with the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, according to Marco.

“But we’re still on schedule with the project itself,” she said.

Construction will next affect the judges and court offices at the City-County Building.

Marco added she will be working with Ohio County circuit judges David Sims and Michael Olejasz so that construction happens mostly in the afternoons.

“But the contractor has asked me if I could find some time when neither of them have anything on the docket – which would be a miracle – so they could get the ceilings done and all the ducts out of the way,” she continued. “Everything else will be done on the afternoon shift, so we don’t bother the judges or court.”

Offices on the second floor will be moved in January, Marco said.

“The first thing will be the removal of (County Clerk) Michael Kelly’s books,” she continued. “We’ll start fixing some of the walls coming down the hallway, then we have build outs we’ve talked about.”

County Assessor Tiffany Hoffman recently asked commissioners if the County Title Office presently in the courthouse annex could be moved into part of a second floor space that is being vacated by the County Prosecutor’s Office. The County Clerk’s Office is being downsized, with the prosecutor’s office gaining additional space.

The second floor offices will get new carpeting, painting and signage, Marco noted.

Another project in the works is replacement of the concrete pavers on the building’s porches, she continued. The project is separate from the HVAC replacement work, but Ohio County received a $100,000 grant with a 20% match from the state’s Courthouse Facilities Program.

“We will be putting heated pavers down,” Marco said. “That way, they will have a longer lifespan because we won’t have to treat them with salt. That’s what chewed up our columns, and they didn’t have the lifespan they should have.”