WHEELING — Two companies will soon sit down for interviews to decide which one will win the bid to demolish the former Ohio Valley Medical Center buildings, making way for a new WVU Medicine regional cancer center at the site.

According to a release from WVU Medicine, a total of six bids were received by 9 a.m. Thursday and opened at noon that day, those bids ranging from $6.7 million to $17.5 million. The names of the two low bidders were not included in the release and a WVU Medicine spokesperson said the names were not available as of Friday afternoon.

WVU Medicine will contact the two lowest bidders next week to schedule final interviews and make a decision. The final award is expected to be announced in early August.

According to WVU Medicine, those final interviews will include discussions of schedule, estimated time of completion, scope of work and other specific details.

The demolition of the old OVMC will be the start of a $70 million investment in a new regional cancer center, which will likely offer a wide range of services. Among them are medical oncology, radiation oncology and mammography services, a melanoma center, a specialty pharmacy, telemedicine capabilities, multidisciplinary tumor boards and academic research facilities.

Preliminary plans call for a four-story facility with between 75,000 and 90,000 square feet of space, a workforce of about 150 employees and a service volume of about 40,000 patient visits per year. It is estimated that the center could be opened within five years.

OVMC had served patients in the Ohio Valley for more than a century before closing for good in 2019. The City of Wheeling bought the property in 2020 and several organizations made their home there between then and when WVU Medicine acquired the property last year.

Early estimates of the demolition costs fell between $7 million and $9 million.