WHEELING — The city of Wheeling is expected to move forward with asbestos abatement at the massive former Clay School Building in East Wheeling – a structure which is expected to be demolished in the coming months.

Legislation is expected to be introduced next week during the first Wheeling City Council meeting in June to award a contract for the asbestos abatement. Although a half-million dollar grant has already been secured for environmental remediation in the old school building, the city may have to kick in some additional funds.

According to Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron, the low bid for the asbestos removal came in just under the $500,000 mark, and some of the funding has already been spent to hire a consultant to provide specifications for the project.

“We did receive bids on the Clay School asbestos abatement,” Herron said. “That will be coming to city council at the next council meeting. We did receive two competitive bids, with a bid from Reclaim out of Fairmont, W.Va., being the low bid at $498,000.”

A $500,000 Brownfield grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was secured for asbestos removal in the facility. While Environmental Standards performed work at the site earlier this year to determine the scope and scheduling related to the remediation of the building, taking into consideration that the building will be demolished – a factor that influences the manner in which the asbestos abatement is performed, officials explained.

The low bid for the abatement is very close to the target based on the available federal funds and early estimates, the city manager indicated.

“That’s pretty much in line – a little bit higher than what we anticipated, but not nearly as high as what the estimate from our consultant was,” Herron said. “But it is in an affordable range. So we will be making a recommendation to city council to move forward with asbestos abatement.”

Because the city hired the consultant to provide specifications regarding the abatement, the city will have to kick in some additional funds.

“We’ll have to put a little bit of money from the city into it,” Herron said.

Funds through the West Virginia Environmental Protection Agency’s D-LAP (Reclamation of Abandoned and Dilapidated Properties) program are available to the city for the Clay School Building’s demolition.

The Clay School first opened more than 80 years ago and operated for decades as part of the city’s public school system before closing its doors in the 1990s. Several attempts by private investors had been made to bring a new life to the sprawling structure along 15th Street, but no ventures to redevelop the property ever took root.

In December of 2021, the city of Wheeling acquired the sprawling 75,000-square-foot property.

Once the site is cleared, officials in the city of Wheeling hope to assemble a funding package to construct a new indoor recreational facility at the site, which is adjacent to the outdoor fields of the J.B. Chambers Memorial Recreation complex in East Wheeling.