WHEELING — City leaders in Wheeling took action Tuesday to begin negotiations that could lead to the city’s acquisition of the former Ohio Valley Medical Center buildings and property.

Members of Wheeling City Council met virtually online Tuesday afternoon for their first regular meeting of the month. Council members went into executive session toward the end for the meeting to discuss a potential property transaction. After the closed session, city leaders returned to open forum and authorized City Manager Robert Herron to negotiate and enter into a non-binding letter of intent with Medical Properties Trust with respect to the transfer of properties constituting the Ohio Valley Medical Center campus, minus the Robert C. Byrd Child & Adolescent Behavioral Health Center.

The former OVMC facility, which closed its doors in September, had been on the front burner of city business in recent weeks as it had been eyed as a potential regional back-up medical site in case a COVID-19 surge would impact the Ohio Valley beyond the capacity of the local hospitals.

Just last week, the city hosted a tour of the facility by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which gathered a wealth of technical information about the site.

That information was to be provided to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the State of West Virginia, which would make a determination whether or not the facility would be used as a pandemic response site.

During the regular portion of Tuesday’s council meeting, however, Wheeling Mayor Glenn Elliott reported that the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources has indicated that the hospital most likely will not be needed as a COVID-19 backup treatment facility.

“Our current understanding is the W.Va. DHHR does not anticipate that OVMC is going to be necessary,” Elliott said, noting that as of Tuesday afternoon there were 345 positive COVID-19 cases in West Virginia and 15 in Ohio County. “Based on current projections, we don’t think that’s going to be necessary.”

Some of the other counties in the state are being hit with the coronavirus much harder, Elliott said. Counties such as Kanawha, Berkeley and Monongalia have each reported more than 55 cases.

“But obviously, that does not mean folks here should get complacent,” he said. “Social distancing here in the city is still very, very important. We have not beaten this thing yet. We think we may have slowed its spread here.”

Before the pandemic, city leaders already had been working with MPT and looking at possibly acquiring the OVMC property. Part of the hospital campus, the Professional Building on Chapline Street has been considered one of the top options for use as the city’s new Public Safety Building.

“MPT has expressed a willingness to transfer all of the properties — and these are all of the main buildings constituting the campus — basically just for the transaction costs for doing so, including back property taxes, legal and brokerage fees and other administrative costs associated with the transaction.”

Elliott said Tuesday’s action would give the city a clear path forward for completing “due diligence and considering the pros and cons of a property transfer.”

If any property transaction would occur, the action would have to go before city council with two readings, the mayor noted. The property owners have expressed a strong preference that if a transaction were to take place, that it happen prior to July 1.

“It’s a lot of real estate,” Elliott said. “We want to kick the tires on it. We understand the value of the property, and this will give us a chance to better understand the liabilities and risks involved with acquiring this property.”

Elliott said the city will explore the pros and cons of owning the facility, the prospects of marketing many of the buildings to the private sector and the options and costs involved with potential demolition of older buildings with less value of marketability or repurposing.

“The interest here is not to reopen a hospital, let’s make that clear,” the mayor said. “We’re not looking at long-term ownership, either.”

There is commercial real estate value to the property, the mayor said, indicating that if the city were to acquire it, Wheeling officials would be in a better strategic position to oversee how it could be marketed or used in the future.

City leaders are still considering the Professional Building as a potential site for the new Public Safety Building, officials said. A $2 per week user fee was implemented at the beginning of the year to generate funds for the creation of a new facility, which will house the city’s Police and Fire Department headquarters. Wheeling officials are yet to determine if the facility would be built from the ground up or if an existing building would be purchased, renovated and repurposed.

The city had entered into an option agreement to consider the purchase an old, deteriorating warehouse complex on 19th Street. That purchase agreement was extended for another 90 days beyond the previous March 17 deadline, officials said Tuesday.

During Tuesday’s council meeting, Herron reported that the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection had follow-up questions regarding the site, and those answers were expected to be back before May 15. Officials expect the property would need some extent of remediation of site contamination, and costs to do so are being considered a key determining factor as to whether or not the Public Safety Building should be constructed there.

“The environmental phase II report has been completed,” Herron said. “Overall the report did come back, and in it the cost of remediation — although it’s still in a draft form — it is going to be what I consider to be a reasonable number, most of which could be handled through a normal construction process. As of right now, there’s no type of recommendation for material to be hauled off that site.”

The city still has the option to apply for and use an Environmental Protection Agency grant that could help cover costs for potential remediation at the site. City leaders said as it stands, that application deadline also falls in May.

“An additional benefit of that property is we would be removing an eyesore right off of Route 2 as you enter that part of the city. It’s hard to put a price tag on that,” Elliott said. “But in the end, it has to make economic sense to consider that property.”