Work Picking Up at Helping Heroes’ New Downtown Wheeling Headquarters
Lauren Taylor Trending
WHEELING -- The historic Columbia Gas building, which sat vacant since 2015, soon will be full of activity again, helping military veterans throughout the region.
Helping Heroes purchased and began to revitalize the downtown Wheeling property last April. The organization hopes the future site of Helping Heroes' headquarters will better serve the Northern Panhandle's veteran population with more space and more opportunities.
Jeremy Harrison, co-founder of Helping Heroes, says the property will allow for the organization to do even more for local veterans and veteran families in need.
"To know that we had started this entire project with just an idea, and now we're going to be moving into a multimillion-dollar building in downtown Wheeling, that is what is going to enable us to provide even more than what we do right now," he said.
Following completed renovations, the new headquarters will boast a floor of administrative offices, a floor of staff offices, three floors containing 15 transitional housing apartments for veterans, a thrift store and eventually a coffee shop.
Harrison says all new additions to the building have the sole purpose of serving veterans in the area.
"Our goal with a thrift store and eventually the coffee shop is that the veterans can work in these places," he said. "In particular, the veterans that live in our building, they'll be able to save money and maybe learn a new skill or something like that, so we're excited about that opportunity."
Along with having the opportunity to work at the organization, veterans who utilize the transitional housing spaces are assigned a case manager who will help them find employment, stable housing and navigate other resources they may need.
Nestled on 16th St. and sitting next to West Virginia Northern Community College's Campus and a couple doors down from the Ohio County Public Library, the former Columbia Gas building towers over a busy, high-traffic area.
Harrison says the finished headquarters will help aid the beautification process that downtown Wheeling is currently seeing.
"There were a lot of questions about if anybody was ever going to rehabilitate this building, and it sits in an area that a lot of people drive by and walk by," he said. "It's been kind of an eyesore, but now we're going to take this building over, we're going to make it look great again, it's going to be utilized and it's going to fit nicely with what's happening downtown."
The Columbia Gas building originally opened in 1962 and served the former company until the mid 1980s, before becoming a space for attorney offices up until 2015. The building's age combined with its extended vacancy left the new occupants with multiple pressing repair efforts.
The building was left roofless in sections causing related rain and snow damage and requiring multi million dollar repairs and renovations including new roofing, asbestos removal, elevator repairs and new windows.
With these large projects behind it, Helping Heroes is beginning to see construction move toward making the interior space livable and functional.
The organization was hoping for completed renovations by the end of this year, but construction could run into the spring of next year. Harrison says the wait will be well worth it.
"There's there's just going to be such a great opportunity for us to provide services, it's going to give us more space, so that we can hire more people to implement new programming for veterans, he said. "We'll be conveniently located right off the interstate, and all the resources that we utilize for our veterans in the community are all in that area."