photo by: Shelley Hanson

Marie McCauley, the architect who designed the new Marshall County Health Department, stands beside the rendering of the future new building during a groundbreaking ceremony on Thursday in Moundsville.

MOUNDSVILLE — As people gathered to celebrate a ceremonial groundbreaking of the new Marshall County Health Department building, it was evident that ground already had been actually broken.

Marshall County Commission President Mike Ferro said the general contractor for the project, Grae-Con Construction of Steubenville, was already three weeks ahead of schedule on the $8.9 million structure. One could see steel beams had already been placed in the ground around the perimeter of the site.

That made Marshall County officials happy as crews got an early jump on an important building for county government and residents.

“On behalf of fellow commissioners Scott Varner and John Gruzinskas, I want to welcome you to this momentous day,” Ferro said. “We are very excited about the future of the Marshall County Health Department.”

To make way for the new building, the old health department building along with the former Journal office were razed.

The health department will continue to operate out of the old Teletech building in Moundsville until the new structure is complete. The new building will be much larger and offer better clinical areas to care for and talk to patients. It will also have a conference space on the second floor that features large glass windows. The building will also include storage for the Marshall County Courthouse and an elections room. The building was designed by Marie McCauley, architect with Silling Architects of Charleston.

Ferro noted discussions about building a new health department had been ongoing for a few years, and was beginning to take shape when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020.

“Sometimes good things happen, coming from bad circumstances,” he said. “COVID made us take a step back and re-evaluate a lot of what we thought was originally needed.”

Tom Cook, health department administrator, said he may “steer the ship,” but it is the health department’s staff that keeps it running. He asked them to stand and be recognized during the ceremony.

In addition to Cook, the health department staff includes Health Officer Dr. Andrew Schmitt, Nursing Director Misty Merinar, sanitarians Thomas Bonar and Curtis Perry, dental hygienist Charlene Rine, nurses Vickie Allender and JoAnn Dobbs, accounting technician Vickie Earnest, office assistants Bonnie Bunch and Mimi Logston and Threat Preparedness Coordinator Chris Earnest.

The Marshall County Board of Health members include Kristy Menendez, the Rev. Wesley Howsare, Ferro, Jason Turner and James Stultz.

“The day would not have come to fruition if not for the hard work, endless hours and true dedication of our commissioners, local administrators and health department staff,” Cook said.

“This project started with a vision, a vision to build an all-inclusive, architectural phenomenon. A building which expresses and defines what the Marshall County Health Department is,” Cook said.

“A building which in 25 years from today will remain special and remain the envy of many other counties. Our new health department will be a state-of-the-art facility. We are constructing the building in preparation for the future.”

“If COVID showed us anything, it showed us the shortcomings of the current building.”

Cook said the new building will have emergency generator power when needed. It will also have a clinical room set up for negative pressure, aka an isolation room to keep a patient with a contagious or infectious illness away from other patients.

“In the past four years, the health department has grown with new programs and the old health department was obsolete,” he added. “This is a project that the citizens of Marshall County can be proud of.”

Howsare thanked everyone involved in getting the project started.

“This is going to be a blessing to Marshall County. … The health department are these people here,” Howsare said, pointing to the staff members. “They are the ones who provide the services. They are the ones who do the training. They are the ones, if you didn’t know it, during COVID who had their lives threatened because they were doing what they believed was right to try and stop COVID from spreading and keep people alive.

“But they’re still here because of the size of their hearts. So thank you.”

Ferro noted that the building is anticipated to be finished in about a year and a half.

During the ceremony, Ferro also thanked Jim Cochran — a retired longtime reporter who continues to write a weekly column for the Sunday News-Register — for his service to the county. Cochran recently underwent hip surgery and has been undergoing physical rehabilitation.