MORGANTOWN — It hasn’t been easy.
To use a football analogy, Milan Puskar Health Right’s two-year push to move out of downtown Morgantown has been like a 16-play, 98-yard drive.
Now they’re ready to close the deal.
“We’re so close,” MPHR Executive Director Laura Jones told members of the Monongalia County Commission earlier this week. “Although we have had setbacks and costs beyond what we expected … we have the ball at the one-yard line.”
Jones explained the sale of Health Right’s home of the last 20 years — 341 Spruce Street — will likely be confirmed in the next week or so and finalized in March.
Further, she said several partners have committed to providing the extra dollars needed to get MPHR moved into its future home at 10 Scott Avenue.
According to Jones, the city of Morgantown upped its investment from $800,000 to $1.1 million and the Hazel Ruby McQuain Charitable Trust increased its support from $300,000 to $550,000. The Milan Puskar Foundation has also discussed a $300,000 contribution toward the project.
Jones was joined by MPHR Board of Directors members Lyn Dotson and Dave Thomas to ask the commission to consider providing an additional $50,000 for the project.
The county has already committed $200,000.
Jones explained the money would help pay an unexpected cost that arose late in the process — rent.
MPHR will need to pay the new owners of the Spruce Street building $7,500/month until the jump to Scott Avenue can be made.
The project to turn the 6,000-square-foot building a stone’s throw from Hazel’s House of Hope into a multi-faceted clinic and office space, including a licensed behavioral health center, is expected to take March-Westin about 10 months.
This whole process began in September 2021, when the city of Morgantown offered MPHR $800,000 in American Rescue Plan money if Health Right would agree to move the clinic and Friendship House out of the downtown by March 31, 2023.
The Friendship House, Health Right’s mental health drop-in center at 231 Walnut Street, closed its doors in February 2023 and reopened three months later at 277 Don Knotts Blvd. with a new mission and a new name, Friendship Community in Recovery.
As for the clinic, Health Right purchased the Scott Avenue building and made plans to renovate the space, but cost estimates for that project came back more than $1 million beyond what the nonprofit had on hand.
Despite those setbacks, Jones said the Health Right is ready to help complete the vision of a social services campus centered around the HHH property.
Dotson agreed, explaining the goal is in sight.
“Anything you can do is going to help us get over the hurdle,” he told the commissioners. “We’re excited. It’s going to happen. Finally, we can say it’s going to happen.”
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