Ohio County BOE Looks Toward Razing Triadelphia Annex
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WHEELING - The annex building at Triadelphia Middle School - where Ohio County Schools alternative school is housed - presently has no heat, and those students are going to be moved to their own area at Wheeling Park High School as soon as next month before temperatures start to drop.
Board of education members Monday night discussed the annex facility during their regular meeting, and in the end they voted unanimously to see what the cost will be to have it razed.
The bidding process will probably take six to eight weeks, according to Steven Bieniek, business manager for the district.
Classes continue in the building for now despite its many structural issues, according to Assistant Superintendent Rick Jones.
"We're going to try to get them up there by the beginning of November," he said. "We don't need (to move) yet. It's not cold yet, but it will be in the next month."
There is space at the south end of WPHS where the alternative school can be placed, and it will have its own entrance there.
"We're not fully done with that plan yet, but we have some ways to rearrange things to make it work," Jones explained.
He reminded board members Monday night that earlier plans had called for demolishing the building as part of the district-wide building improvement projects approved by voters in 2018. But in the end it was decided the school district would try to get a few more years out of the annex.
"We thought we could get some use out of it for some needs we had at the time," Jones continued. "So it's been about five or six years.”
"We have no heat now. The heat is gone. We had two boilers. We were running off of just one, and now the second one is gone."
He asked board members in what direction they wanted to go with the annex facility.
David Crumm, director of operations, reported the cost has been estimated at $175,000 to get the steam boilers working and get heat in the building. The facility has no air conditioning.
The boilers currently at the Triadelphia Middle School annex were previously part of the system at the Warwood Elementary School.
"We were able to use what we had left over there to fix what was going on at the Triadelphia annex, and that bought us a couple more years," Crumm explained.
He said the first option is to put a new heating, ventilation and air conditioning system in the building, but it couldn't be done immediately.
Replacing the boilers themselves would require additional work to the boiler room.
Board president David Croft asked Crum if the building could be made usable again for a cost of less than $1 million. Crum said he saw it costing at least $500,000.
Jones added that the annex also needs a new roof and all new doors. Restrooms would have to be replaced, and plaster is falling from the ceilings and flooring is needed.
"To me, I don't know how we could do it all for under $1 million," he said.
In addition to the alternative school, the Florence Crittenton Services had been planning to locate services there, according to Jones.
There is robotics storage there, and the school district’s computers are all repaired out of a room set up at the annex. Additional programs also take place at the facility, other school district officials told him.
Board member Andy Garber asked if the programs can all be safely moved to other locations within the school district.
He noted that while he doesn't know yet how much it will cost to tear down the building, Triadelphia Middle School lacks parking and could use the cleared space for this purpose.
"I don't know how much longer that building could stay, and how much longer we're going to sink that much money into it," Garber added.
Crumm noted when the school district last looked into demolishing the annex in 2021, the cost was at about $125,000.
"The question is whether it is in the best interest of the public's money to fix that old building, versus tearing it down and looking for other opportunities within the county's footprint," Croft said. "It seems pretty apparent we wouldn't get the cost benefit of putting $1 million into that building. We still wouldn't be using it to its full potential or capacity."
The board is next set to meet at 6 p.m. on Oct. 26 at the board office, 2203 National Road, Elm Grove.