WHEELING — While work on the $12.5 million Moundsville City Project has suddenly come to a halt after general contractor PCS &build’s filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, the name of a potential replacement to get the job done has surfaced — Coon Restoration.

During Tuesday night’s meeting of Moundsville City Council, City Manager Rick Healy gave an update on the situation surrounding construction of the new municipal building. Officials stressed that the decision to select a new contractor will be up to the bonding company, not the city.

Healy said a meeting had been scheduled on March 22 with the general contractor’s project directors and other parties to discuss project delays and quality control issues. The city was informed prior to that meeting that representatives of &build would not be in attendance, and word had spread about the possibility that the troubled company was planning to file for bankruptcy.

The meeting still took place, and the bonding company gave the city direction on how to proceed if &build elected to file for bankruptcy protection — and it did.

“We were also informed by one of &build’s project managers that morning that all of the superintendents were let go from the company,” Healy reported. “The following week, the city attorney confirmed that they had filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on Tuesday, March 26. We were advised by the bonding company to allow subcontractors to remove any tools or supplies that belonged to them but remove no building materials.”

Construction has since come to a standstill at the worksite.

“At that point, we decided to change locks on all of the gates,” Healy said. “I revised the contract with JD&E to provide site security and to be the liaison for the subcontractors.”

The bonding company advised the city to obtain the services of a construction attorney. Healy said they have come to an agreement with attorney David Croft of Spilman Thomas & Battle.

“They will work in conjunction with the city attorney to provide any necessary legal advice,” Healy said. “We’ve also been informed that Coon Restoration has a financial interest in the project, and they also have interest in assuming the general contractor duties. So at this point now, we’re waiting for the necessary guidance from the legal team and the bonding company.”

Healy noted that while the situation is inconvenient and not ideal, the city is protected under its contract for these unfortunate circumstances.

“We obviously do have a performance bond in place that protects the city in cases like this, as well as a payment bond for the subcontractors,” he said. “It’s also important to understand that as a public entity, we accept the lowest bids on projects. While the general contractor is from out of the immediate area, almost all of the subcontractors were local, and almost all of them were union contractors.”

Mayor Sara Wood-Shaw noted that neither council nor the city administration will make the call on which contractor will complete the project.

“The bonding company is responsible for choosing the new general contractor — that’s not a decision that the city makes,” Wood-Shaw said. “Just to clarify, the city is required to accept the lowest bidder — and that is state code. That is not our policy that we have to follow.”

Healy noted that only under unusual circumstances are lowest bids not considered best bids, and therefore, subject to rejection.

“You have to have a rock solid reason to not take the lowest bid,” Healy said. “If you don’t take the lowest bid, you’re probably going to end up in a lawsuit. The company &build fulfilled all of the requirements during the bidding process, and they were the lowest bid, so they were selected.”

The city of Wheeling is in a similar situation on the construction site for its new $9 million Fire Department Headquarters in East Wheeling. For that project, &build was awarded the bid as general contractor. Payment issues to subcontractors surfaced late last year, then appeared to be resolved earlier this year, but work has stopped in the wake of the company’s bankruptcy filing.

Coon Restoration is also a name that is familiar in Wheeling, as the company based in the Canton-area was to spearhead the re-development of the former Wheeling-Pitt headquarters into a downtown apartment complex. The city of Wheeling agreed to build a new $12.6 million parking structure on Market Street to help accommodate tenants for the new loft apartments. However, noticeable redevelopment work on the Wheeling-Pitt building has been virtually nonexistent over the past year, while the new parking structure is nearing completion.

In other action Tuesday night, council cast a 5-1 majority vote to approve action that will allow the garnishment of wages as a means to collect delinquent city fees. Councilman Gene Saunders voted against the measure, and Councilman David Wood was not present at Tuesday night’s meeting to cast a vote.

The action was approved, and Healy noted that the new measure will only be used to collect outstanding fees for municipal services as a “last resort.” In the past, the city has gone after chronic non-payments by filing lawsuits in municipal court, getting a judgment and then placing a lien on the violator’s property.

“But we’ve never been able to go any further,” Healy said. “This will give us another tool to collect. Once we get the judgment from them, we can then garnish wages.”

The policy being put in place states that the city will not be taking action against people who just get behind on payments. In fact, payment plans are available, and the city will work with those who need to get caught up, the city manager said.

“These are for people who just strictly don’t pay their bills — people who go months and months, but make no effort to do so,” he said.

There is a substantial amount of outstanding fees on the city’s books, Healy said, estimating the total to be in the “hundreds of thousands” of dollars.

Another ordinance approved by a majority vote Tuesday night will give future terms of city council members and the mayor a pay increase. Officials explained that the current compensation for the mayor is $600 per month and for council members is $500 per month. New monthly pay rates will be $750 for the mayor and $600 for each council member.

The new rates will only go into effect after a city official is elected or re-elected to a new term. Officials noted that terms on city council are staggered, and the earliest that any members could see the increase would be in January 2025 after the November general election.

“No current member will receive the increase unless they run for election and are re-elected, and then that increase will go into effect,” Wood-Shaw said.

The last time city council members or the mayor received such an increase was in 2019.

Councilwoman Ginger DeWitt voted against the pay raises, but all the rest of council members present Tuesday night voted in favor of the ordinance.