MORGANTOWN — There’s a big brick building at 501 Van Voorhis Road — 48,000 square feet or so shaped like a giant H.
The sign above the front door says “Friendship Manor.”
Malene Davis calls it “The building God picked out.”
You see, Davis has spent the last 30-plus years working in hospice care. These days, the registered nurse serves as the president and CEO of West Virginia Caring, formerly Hospice Care Corp., which serves 12 counties — basically covering everything from Flatwoods, north.
In 2004, the company opened a 12-bed inpatient hospice center in Elkins. The inpatient aspect made it among the first of its kind in West Virginia, a state in need of additional hospice services of all kinds.
“In West Virginia there are six hospice centers,” Davis explained. “Martinsburg, Huntington, Wheeling, Charleston, Beckley and ours in Elkins. Morgantown has never had a hospice center.”
This despite a near decade-long search for a suitable local property. It needed to be near the hospitals. It needed to be easily accessible for families and, most difficult, it needed to be affordable.
Here’s where Davis’ diagnosis of divine influence comes into play.
It all started during a chance conversation with a representative of the Kiwanis Club of Morgantown, owner of the aforementioned brick building on Van Voorhis Road.
The club operates the building as rent-controlled apartments for tenants 55 and older.
Like Davis, the Kiwanians were looking for something very specific — a way to get out of the building that would allow the club to uphold its commitment to its mission and its tenants.
“To be truthful, it’s more than we can handle right now. It’s got no sprinkler system. The roof is over 35 years old. We need help,” longtime member Jim Alexander told members of the Morgantown Planning Commission back in October. “We could walk away from this with a lot of money in our pocket and no questions asked … but we made a commitment to our residents.”
You can see where this is going.
Alexander said the club is selling the property, which is appraised at just over $3.1 million according to county records, to West Virginia Caring at “a huge discount,” to meet the needs of both parties.
West Virginia Caring plans to turn the third floor of the building into an inpatient hospice center while keeping the first two floors as they are, save some much-needed updating.
Alexander said the building is currently at about 50% capacity, meaning nobody will be forced out.
Davis said there will be no change in rent costs for tenants.
But first, the property needed to be rezoned in order to serve both multi-family housing and hospice uses.
After some initial back and forth, the Morgantown Planning Commission recommended a switch from PRO (professional, residential, office) to R-3 (multifamily residential). Morgantown City Council enforced that recommendation.
In addition to the required legislative considerations from the city, the project also has the support of both hospital systems and the university.
Brad Phillips, an associate dean in the WVU School of Nursing, said some students are traveling up to three hours round-trip to meet national requirements in palliative and hospice care.
With this facility, he added, “The students could literally walk across the street and have that training.”
Ed Phillips, chief legal officer and general counsel for Mon Health, said having such a facility in Morgantown would be a blessing for local families already facing a gut-wrenching decision about end-of-life care.
“This is a calling,” he said. “It is God’s work.”
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