Morgantown begins demolition of more than 50 structures

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WBOY) — Over the next 2-3 weeks, Morgantown Area Partnership (MAP) will demolish 58 structures across nine and a half acres of property to develop the East End Village project, and on Thursday, an event was held to mark it’s beginning.

President and CEO Russ Rogerson said that the property can’t be developed until the structures are torn down and it can be turned into a greenfield site. However, he said that tearing down all of these structures is no small feat, so MAP partnered with the City of Morgantown, Monongalia County, West Virginia University and the Biafora Development Group to help make it possible.

“We are really pleased to now have a date certain of when the homes will be demolished, and then that’s when the above-ground developer can really start doing his job and [get] his team working, to get the kind of development on this property that we feel is gonna add great value to our community,” said Rogerson.

Once MAP begins demolition, Rogerson said that the construction workers have until Feb. 15 to get all of the structures knocked down. During the demolition period, developers will be working on planning, designing and other contract work.

Rogerson believes that before August of next year, he and his partners are expecting to have at least one lot sale in the area. He said he feels that this redevelopment project is necessary because “the dynamics of student renting is changing at every university in the country.”

“And so, the traditional method here for upper-class students was to rent apartments,” Rogerson added. “With that model changing…we wanna show ways that we can take those areas, redevelop them. And proper redevelopment will also shore up the existing single-family home neighborhoods in the area.”

Rogerson said that this redevelopment project will help connect WVU students and neighborhood residents into downtown Morgantown regardless of whether they walk, bike or drive. There’s no set date for the completion of this project, but Rogerson said that MAP would like to have it done in its entirety in five years.

He added that it took a lot of work to get this project to the point that it is now because redevelopment is a very challenging thing to do. “Doing it on a one or two homes or small lots [is] one thing, doing it on nine and a half acres is a whole different level of challenge,” said Rogerson.

Therefore, Rogerson said that a lot of time was spent having discussions, planning and assessing what things could and couldn’t be done throughout the span of the project. He also said that MAP had to engage all of its different partners to make sure that everybody was informed and had input on what businesses would be placed there.

Prior to Thursday’s event, the team also had to rezone the land, reclassifying it from residential (1A) to B1, “which is really just local businesses—neighborhood businesses, and it also restricted the height of the buildings,” said Rogerson. He said that the developers wanted to make sure that the East End Village is a good fit for the community, while still delivering the type of retail and other opportunities that they need, including new apartments.

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