Community

Belmont County Health Department Building Nears Completion

ST. CLAIRSVILLE -- The new Belmont County Health Department building project is set for completion Dec. 28.

As construction continues at the facility, the Belmont County Board of Commissioners passed two motions approving amendments regarding the project.

The board approved an amendment to the Mills Group LLC agreement for storm and sanitary redesign and additional construction administrative services in the amount of $101,640.

The board then approved a change order from Grae-Con Construction Inc. for a decreased amount of $5,000 for not providing stain for the retaining wall and a change order in the increased amount of $9,240 for additional work related to milling and overlaying the Belmont Career Center parking lot.

Commissioner Jerry Echemann said the new total for the project is now $16,233,354.11.

He added that change orders mean the price is either going to go up or down, and usually it's up.

"They’re quite common. In fact, at almost every meeting now, we’ve been dealing with change orders, and that’s just because something comes up, there’s a new situation, and the contractor has to spend more money doing this or that, so we have to change the order in order that we can pay them," Echemann said. "Once in a while, we get a decrease in the cost, which happened today. We’re happy about that."

He added that the reason for the decrease is because of a retaining wall that is being put in. The board was originally going to stain it but decided against it because it thought the wall looked nice without the stain.

"The exterior is largely completed, except for some paving and everything around the building. I’ve been getting a lot of comments from residents saying it looks quite nice, and I think it does too," Echemann said. "Our old county home sat there and needed to be demolished, so it was nice just to get that down. And now we’ve got this brand new building there, and it does look good in my opinion."

Echemann said the board is pleased with the progress of the project.

He added that although the completion date is Dec. 28, he doesn't believe the county's health department, coroner's office and records departments will be moved into the new building by the end of 2026.

Echemann said the biggest part of moving the three departments into the new building will be moving all of the records into the new space.

"There are a lot of records to be moved, so we’re going to pay a company to do that because you can’t mix that stuff up, you got to know what’s what and where it’s at, so that’s going to be the biggest part of the actual move," Echemann said. "And of course, the health department will have to move a lot of their stuff in there."

He added that the board is bound by law to provide a space for the health department to operate despite it being independent from the county.

"Other than that, we don’t tell the health department what to do, nor nor should we. They’re the experts on health matters, but we do have to provide them a space," Echemann said. "They’ve been down the street a ways for a long time in a building that’s adequate, but kind of barely adequate. So at some point, we’ll have to decide what to do with the old health department, which is the current one that they’re using, and there has been some interest expressed for that building, but we don’t know whether we’re going to sell it, rent it or what we’re going to do at this point."

He added that the board has had some discussions on what to do with the current health department building. Echemann said it's not so bad that it's going to have to be demolished.

Lastly, the Coroner's Office will be inside the new facility, making it the first coroner's office in the history of Belmont County.

"We don’t think any coroner has ever had their own county space. They’ve just been doctors who had offices and ran the coroner’s office out of their own office," Echemann said. "Now she’ll have an office, she’ll have a small meeting room where she can sit and meet with the families who’ve lost a loved one, and there’s also going to be a morgue with a garage door where you can back a truck or ambulance into."

He added that the new health department will be a nice facility that the county has needed for a long time.