MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The site of the soon-to-be-closing headquarters of the Monongalia County Health Department has officially received a bidder to purchase the property.

Tom Bloom

The Monongalia County Commission unanimously approved accepting the bid submitted by West Virginia University Hospitals during their regular meeting on Wednesday, which is valued at $6 million. The decision comes less than a month after a public notice was issued announcing the intended sale of the property located a short walk away from Ruby Memorial Hospital and after months of conversations with county and WVU Hospital officials to move the sale forward.

“This has been a real long process, and when you all came in in the past six months or so, we really got together to work together, and I appreciate your support,” Monongalia County Commissioner Tom Bloom said. “I can’t wait for this to happen, I think this is just going to be a real positive step for the community.”

Sean Sikora

According to Commission President Sean Sikora, the bid by WVU Hospitals was the only one that was submitted for the property located at the corner of Van Voorhis Road and Elmer Prince Drive, which totals approximately 2.25 acres. As part of the bid, WVU Hospitals has deposited $600,000, 10% of the purchase price, with the county’s escrow agent, while also providing an appraisal, which was valued at $4,135,000. The sale includes three parcels of property that contain the MCHD building as well as the WIC building.

“Ten percent down in earnest with our escrow agent, which I understand has occurred, and they also needed to provide an appraisal,” said Sikora. “The offer needed to be at least 75 percent of the appraised value, so they’ve met that requirement.”

Dr. Michael Grace

WVU Hospitals President and CEO Michael Grace said the property will be used as part of ongoing expansion at the Evansdale campus. This includes the ongoing development of the WVU Eye Institute that is located in front of the MCHD building. For WVU Hospitals officials, the purchase is an opportunity to continue to expand the footprint of their offerings at the Morgantown campus, Grace told the commission.

“The property is located, as you know, very conveniently to WVU hospitals, Ruby Children’s on our campus, and we always have a need to enhance the health care services we provide to our community,” said Grace.

The commission will consider the bid for formal approval during its regular meeting next week. If the agreement moves forward, WVU will lease the property back to the county to accommodate the MCHD until the health department moves to its new location by July 2027.

The commission also unanimously approved an allocation of up to $30,000 in support of a potential NCAA Regional Baseball Tournament at Kendrick Family Ballpark at the Monongalia County Baseball Complex. The funds will be used pending the placement of the currently 15th-ranked Mountaineers at the end of the season scheduled for the weekend of May 16.

“They haven’t needed to utilize it (recently), let’s hope that they have a good couple of weeks and we actually need to spend that,” Sikora said.