Work on Wheeling Fire Department Headquarters To Resume Soon

photo by: Eric Ayres

Work on the construction site of the new $9 million Wheeling Fire Department headquarters in East Wheeling is expected to resume within the next couple of weeks.

WHEELING — Construction of the new Wheeling Fire Department headquarters is expected to resume soon as red tape surrounding the former general contractor’s bankruptcy is apparently beginning to clear.

A new general contractor — Great Lakes Contracting — has been selected, and work should resume in early September. Issues with former general contractor &build, a PCS Company, and its filing of Chapter 7 bankruptcy in March left the construction of the new $9 million fire department headquarters in East Wheeling at a standstill since this past spring.

The exterior walls at the new fire headquarters along 17th Street have been up for the past year, but officials have indicated that millions of dollars worth of interior construction remains. Wheeling is not the only municipality that has a major construction project on hold because of &build’s liquidation bankruptcy filing.

The City of Moundsville’s new $10.5 million city building, a $3.2 million Harrison County Home Addition in Cadiz and other projects have also been affected by the contractor’s legal proceedings in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Because of &build’s failure to complete its contractual obligations on these projects, municipalities have been waiting on the release of surety bonds in order to be able to proceed with completion of these partially finished builds. This summer, however, additional delays came about during a legal battle in bankruptcy court between the surety company and the Chapter 7 trustee over pre-petition balances on these projects – including the 10% retainer from each job as well as the remaining accounts receivable amounts.

Officials have noted that these legal hurdles are being overcome, and work should resume in a matter of days.

“For the past several weeks, we have been working with the surety company on this project to have a contractor ‘takeover’ the project where PCS &build left off,” Herron said. “I can report that we have reached an agreement with the surety company to do that.”

Herron noted that the surety company presented Great Lakes Contracting to the city of Wheeling to be the contractor to finish the fire department headquarters job, and he explained that the surety company has that power under the terms of the performance bond.

“We have reviewed them, and they are acceptable,” Herron said. “Currently they are in the process of submitting the required insurances, licenses, workers compensation paperwork, etc. It is the expectation that they will begin mobilization within the next week to 10 days.”

In the meantime, discussions with the various project subcontractors are expected to begin within the next week, Herron noted.

“The new completion date agreed to by the surety company is Dec. 31, 2024,” he said. “The city will continue to process contractor pay applications through a previously established escrow account.”

Herron noted that the bankruptcy proceedings greatly complicated the process of moving the project forward, despite the fact that the contract included the routine safety net of a surety bond. Herron said he did not wish to rehash the details surrounding the legal complications that had to be ironed out, but he described the process over the past few months as very “time consuming and difficult.”

The city’s legal department, the project engineers and outside legal counsel hired by the city in the wake of the bankruptcy filing all worked diligently to help resolve this issue, Herron said.

“Spillman Thomas & Battle, PLLC, M&G Architects & Engineers and (Wheeling City Solicitor) Rose Humway-Warmuth did a very good job of representing the city both in the bankruptcy court and in dealing with the surety company,” Herron noted.

Overall, the problems related to the general contractor have delayed the construction of the new Wheeling Fire Department Headquarters about one year – as the completion date before legal issues arose had been the end of December last year.

Instead of moving directly from the old fire headquarters in Center Wheeling to the new headquarters at the beginning of this year as originally planned, the fire department had to move out of the old site in the lower level of the Center Wheeling Parking Garage and into various temporary locations this year since the parking structure’s demolition was already under contract.

Some of the fire apparatuses were relocated to stations across the city, while others relocated to Clator in the former U.S. Armory complex, which the city acquired about a year ago. Fire Chief Jim Blazier and other members of the command staff are also located at the Armory, where they are expected to remain until the new headquarters is complete.