BLUEFIELD, WV (WOAY) – Two buildings on the corner of Bland Street and McCulloch Avenue are currently in the works to be demolished.
The two buildings have been unused for some time and were recently purchased by the City of Bluefield.
According to City Attorney Colin Cline, both of the buildings appear to be in good condition from the outside but are in disarray on the inside.
“We acquired a couple of buildings over the course of about a year. The most recent- one was the Communication Workers of America Building. Previously we had acquired the building immediately to the south of that called the Bland Ferry Building,” Cline said.
This week during a virtual meeting, members of the City Board approved a pledge of $85,000 that would go toward the demolition of the two downtown buildings. The city is also expecting to receive a $250,000 grant that will fund the rest of the cost.
“Both of those buildings are in bad shape. But we can’t really tear down the Bland Ferry Building without impacting the Communication Workers of America Building. So we applied for a community development block grant to take both of those buildings down.”
Bluefield is expecting to see a slight boom in its downtown economy in the coming months. To help accommodate the growing city, they plan to turn the space the two buildings take up into a new parking lot.
“We need additional parking downtown. We’re anticipating some growth downtown so this will enable us to do that. We’ve got Intuit coming in, they’ve completed the work on their building. That alone will have 362 additional jobs in our downtown area.”
If approved for the community development block grant, the city will start work to select a contractor and then move forward on the demolition.
