MORGANTOWN — In a recent update to Morgantown City Council, Milan Puskar Health Right Executive Director Laura Jones said the effort to relocate Health Right’s clinic and Friendship House out of the city’s downtown may take a little more time and money than initially thought.
As previously reported, the city approached Health Right about a year ago with an offer — move the Spruce Street clinic and the Friendship House out of downtown by March 31, 2023, and the city will provide $800,000 in American Rescue Plan money to purchase new property and assist in the move.
Jones said that effort is well underway, though it may be a couple months behind schedule on the deadline.
The clinic is moving to 10 Scott Ave., a stone’s throw from Hazel’s House of Hope.
After purchasing the 6,000 square-foot building, Jones said Health Right has about $244,000 in APRA dollars remaining.
The goal now is to break ground on a 2,700 square-foot addition to that building later this year.
The ground-floor expansion will house the medical clinic. The first floor of the building will be a handicapped accessible, and licensed, behavioral health center, allowing Health Right to grow medication programs for opioid use disorder and bill Medicaid for the work of its recovery coaches.
Another new addition coming with the move will be dental services. Health Right intends to construct two operatories and a lab/work space on the building’s first floor, though funding and programming details are still in the works.
“Our initial sense was that the addition and renovation was going to cost in the $600,000 to $700,000 range, after the purchase of the building … The architect is projecting the total cost of renovation and the clinic is going to exceed $1 million. We have about $700,000 of that committed, so we’re working on fundraising. Definitely,” Jones said. “I’m guessing it could be another $500,000, but we’ll see.”
Health Right is working with Black Diamond Realty to sell its current home, located at 341 Spruce St. The 10,578 square-foot building constructed in 1950 is currently listed at $975,000.
As for the Friendship House, Health Right’s mental health drop-in center is moving from Walnut Street to 277 Don Knotts Blvd.
It’s also going to be rebranded and undergo a complete transformation in terms of programming.
Jones said Health Right received grant funds to create one of seven recovery centers in the state.
“The program will be only for people willing to work on recovery goals,” Jones said, later adding, “We will not be a drop-in center for folks who are houseless.”
The hope is that Hazel’s House of Hope can step in the breach.
As reported in May, Morgantown Community Resources, the entity that owns and facilitates the HHH property as a centralized campus for social services, asked both the city and county to put up $250,000 to help create a dedicated day room in the Scott Avenue facility.
“We will be sending outreach folks up there to meet with people because we don’t want to lose connections with folks that are not yet ready for recovery. We want to still be actively engaging them, but what we do at the recovery center will be to create a safe space for people who are actively working on recovery,” Jones said. “Right now in our current setting, with the situation that we have, we’re not considered a real safe space for people in recovery. So that’s going to be a big transformation for us and for our community.”
