photo by: Eric Ayres

New duct work and wiring has been installed throughout the first floor of the City-County Building in Wheeling as part of the ongoing $12 million improvement project. New heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, as well as new lighting and other features, are being installed throughout the building, which remains in operations with some city and county offices moved to temporary locations during construction.

WHEELING — Municipal offices displaced by the ongoing renovations at the City-County Building may have to continue operating out of temporary spaces into the spring of this year.

City Manager Robert Herron reported this week that work on the first floor of the facility is moving along, but plans for city offices to move back to their traditional home bases in the coming weeks may be pushed back further into 2026 than originally planned.

“As for our temporary quarters here on our second floor courtroom, we’re still a couple months away from moving back down to the first floor,” Herron told members of Wheeling City Council this week.

The building, which is owned and operated by Ohio County, has been a construction site for the past couple of years as a $12 million, floor-by-floor renovation has been taking place since 2022.

For the most part, the work started around the top of the facility and has made its way down the six-story building one level at a time.

Renovations include the updating of the building’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems. Work is also being done to reconfigure some of the work spaces in the building, to add new lighting and new ceilings, and to do some masonry improvements, as well as some other needed upgrades.

The city of Wheeling is a major tenant of the building, and both city and county offices have continued to operate in the facility in “swing spaces” and in temporary homes at times during construction. A number of city offices and work spaces that are housed on the first floor of the building – including Wheeling City Council Chambers – have been displaced to temporary locations during construction.

Wheeling City Council has been meeting in the second floor courtroom since being temporarily moved out of the first floor late last year.

“The project is progressing, but they are putting the final touches on all of the first floor, which includes the council chambers, as well as the Finance Department and the Water and Sewer Accounting Department for the city and the Health Department for the county,” Herron said. “We had hoped that we would be able to move back in February, but it looks like it’s going to be sometime in March or early April.”

Last year, several city offices had been relocated when construction reached the third floor of the building. The City Manager’s Office, Human Resources Office, Community Development and Planning Department, Building and Zoning, Engineering, Legal Department and the City Clerk’s Office were among those departments that had been temporarily displaced.

The former Wheeling Police Department on the first floor of the facility was renovated earlier in the construction phase of the project and has been used as one of the key “swing spaces” to house displaced offices while renovations continue. The former law library on the fourth floor has also been utilized as a “swing space.”

“The project is moving forward,” Herron said, noting that the county and the contractor have worked well with the city in coordinating the temporary moves while maintaining operations in the building.

Since the city leases from the county a significant amount of space in the building for its municipal offices, the city of Wheeling has contributed to the costs of the major renovation project. Officials have stated that the city’s lease for space in the City-County Building includes the original annual amount of $192,496 for city offices, plus 40-percent of the annual debt service for the renovations.

Wheeling City Council’s move to its temporary space in the second floor courtroom has been a relatively smooth one. Officials had initially tried to continue using its remote “click-to-vote” system when casting votes on legislation. However, the technology available in council chambers proved to be challenging to use in the temporary location, and city leaders have since reverted to the old-school voice vote.

“Since we’ve been in these temporary quarters, we no longer do the ‘click’ vote,” Magruder noted last week, asking the city clerk to conduct roll-call voice votes instead until they return to council chambers later this year.