THE INTERMOUNTAIN, ELKINS, WV — Randolph County Development Authority Executive Director Robbie Morris offered a project update on the construction of a new event and conference center in the Elkins Railyard. The county commission provided the Randolph County Development Authority $250,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funding for the project, which began as a plan for a 16,000-square-feet facility. The planned center is now being designed as a 28,000-square-feet structure. “Your ARPA dollars are not the only federal monies that we are working with,” Morris said. “We have not spent hardly any money except for some bills to Thrasher Engineering for the design and construction documents. As for your funds, we still have the entire $250,000 you allocated to us, it is still unspent.”
Morris said money will soon be spent, however, once Thrasher starts the creation of construction documents and the engineering of the project. He added that once the actual construction starts, money will be flying out the door. “We are still within our regulatory time frames of committing and cementing that (ARPA) funding,” said Morris. “The years of 2024 and 2025 are going to be busy times for this project.” “This has been quite a project and looking at the development of it, from conception to reality, we are currently finishing up the design phase,” Morris said. “We are starting to get into the design permitting and approval part of this. The state historic preservation office, through an agreement we had entered into with them, has to review the plans and we are going to submit that right after Labor Day for their initial review.”
From there, Morris said construction and bidding documents will be created. “All of that sort of stuff will take place in the fourth quarter of this year,” he said. “Getting preliminary approvals from the fire marshal and all the other regulatory bodies we have to go through to actually be able to put the project out to bid.”
Morris told the commission that bids for construction will likely start being accepted during the first quarter of 2024, and that the actual construction will start during the second quarter of 2024. “If the regulatory bodies approve faster than that, then we will be ready to go,” said Morris. “We’re working with the Region 7 Planning and Development Council, which has been instrumental in not only guiding us through all the different sources of funding, but also getting all of the documents ready in which to put the project out to bid and staying compliant.”
During Morris’ presentation, he provided artists’ renderings of what the facility will look like, both inside and out, after it is completed. “The building, from when we first conceptualized it, has grown from 16,000 square feet to a little over 28,000 square feet,” said Morris. “So you can imagine that the cost of the project has also risen, but again we are working with other funding partners — we are filling that financial gap quickly.”
Morris said the plaza section of the center is the only part of the project that is currently underfunded, but noted the RCDA is working on some grants to help. “We have a Transportation Alternatives Grant in to the West Virginia Division of Highways and we haven’t heard back on that yet,” said Morris. “But we are making contingency plans in which we can fund that. Because the last thing I want to do is have all this nice new concrete and asphalt for parking lots, roads and everything else, and a year later have to go in and tear that out.”
All three commissioners told Morris how excited they were about the project. “I think once we get this done, it’s going to be a great asset to the county and the city,” said David Kesling. “Elkins and Randolph County don’t have a place to have conventions, and this is going to be a big boost to the economy.” Chris Siler, who is a retired West Virginia state trooper, said he sees the potential of the center from past experiences. “This will be good for law enforcement training as well. The national academy does a lot of training around the state and they go to different towns all the time,” Siler said. “I’ve been to several in Charles Town, Martinsburg, Cumberland, Charleston and places like that. And they are not using anything that is any bigger than what you are building. It will be perfect for doing something like that and bringing in other things into our county.”
Morris said organizations often inquire about holding conventions and other events in Randolph County. “The CVB will tell you that they get calls from different groups all the time who would like to come to this area of West Virginia for a conference or a convention,” Morris said. “Right now we can’t meet the criteria, but this facility is going to help us be able to host those types of events… “So I think this is going to spur, with a lot of other projects we have going on, a nice boost to the county. We are really excited about it, so hopefully we will have a second quarter grand opening in 2025, depending on how the winter of 2024 goes.”