photo by: Emma Delk

Marshall County Administrator Betsy Frohnapfel stands next to the elevator at the former State Foods Building on Lafayette Avenue in Moundsville, which the county wants to restore for election offices.

Marshall County officials hope to operate the 2026 election, not from the courthouse but from the former State Food Stores building on Lafayette Avenue following the Marshall County Commission’s purchase in late January.

The $115,000 building, built in 1922, was paid for by the commission from general county funds. Marshall County Administrator Betsy Frohnapfel said they hope to use the 29,000-square-foot building to store election materials and county records.

Frohnapfel said the commission was currently creating a request for qualifications for architects for the building, which will be the first step in securing an architect for the project. She said no elaborate rework will be required for the inside of the building, as their main goal in updating the building will be to make the space “very functional.”

“The inside of the building just needs to be a functional workspace and working area,” Frohnapfel said. “Our goal is to clean up the outside of the building and make it look presentable. Lafayette Avenue is the main street through Moundsville, and we want to make sure any building that the commission owns looks good.”

Frohnapfel said the commission would fund work on the building as it becomes available and the need arises. She noted that the commission’s main priority would be completing rework on the first floor for the County Clerk’s Office.

The first floor of the building will be a dedicated storage and work space for the County Clerk’s Office and their elections team. Frohnapfel said the building would provide much-needed storage space for the 150 voting machines in the county, which are currently housed in the courthouse’s basement.

“We have 150 voting machines, but they’re not just voting machines we can shove away in a corner until the election,” Frohnapfel noted. “We have to store them, they have to be maintained and their batteries have to be tested. It’s a process to use these machines, and our County Clerks’ Office starts gearing up for the elections right after the holiday season in January.”

Frohnapfel said the commission currently does not have cost estimates for the rework of the first floor of the building. She said the tentative goal is to have the first floor open for the next election season.

The second and third floors of the building will be a record retention area for the county. Frohnapfel emphasized the need to offload the various records and documents that the county is required to store by the West Virginia Records Management and Preservation Board.

“If you go into any office in the courthouse, you’re stepping over boxes and they have things stacked up on the walls,” Frohnapfel said. “Our maintenance team has built shelving in the courthouse to maximize space, but we’re out of it.”

Apart from clearing up some space in the courthouse, Frohnapfel hopes the Lafayette Avenue building will also help county operations run more smoothly, particularly regarding elections.

“This building will be an area that County Clerk’s office employees can go to to focus solely on election work,” Frohnapfel said. “Anytime you’re in the courthouse and working in an office, you’re going to get interrupted by somebody saying, ‘Hey, can you help me with this?’ or ‘Hey, where do I get this from?’ This will be an area where the elections team can go work, focus on the elections and do what they need to do.”