WHEELING — WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital plans to expand its pediatric health care services when an estimated $9 million project to renovate an existing building on its campus is complete.

Jessica Rine, assistant vice president of the Medical Park Foundation and Community Relations for WVU Medicine Wheeling and Reynolds Memorial hospitals, said Tuesday that the former Continuous Care Center building will be renovated and turned into an outpatient pediatric clinic.

The site will serve as the new location for a child’s visits with their pediatrician.

It will also include a rapid-care style, after-hours clinic for children as well.

Children who need emergency care will still be seen inside the emergency room inside the main hospital, she said.

The new pediatric clinic, however, will also offer families the option of seeing some pediatric specialists at the Wheeling location instead of having to travel to Morgantown for such care.

Rine said fundraising for the project, estimated to cost between $8 million and $9 million, is under way.

There currently is no timeline as to when the renovation will be complete.

“It’s an L-shaped building. It will take all of the first level,” she said of the new clinic. “The primary care physicians for pediatrics that are located here now will be moving their offices into the building.”

Rine said the bulk of the renovation will occur on the first floor of the structure where the new clinic will be located.

“We want to take care of parents and kids throughout the Ohio Valley. Having this center, this new state-of-the-art pediatric center, is our next step as a WVU Medicine hospital in caring for a population in our community,” she said.

“For me as a mom, having to navigate a hospital with a sick kid is sometimes tough.

“Having the opportunity to have street-level access to take your kids directly for a well visit or sick visits, there’s an ease for parents there.

There will be separate entrances for sick children and children going to their well checkups. She noted there will also be laboratory services just for children as well as X-ray services.

Rine said inpatient pediatric care will remain at the main hospital building.

Douglass Harrison, CEO of WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital, said the new outpatient pediatric center will “transform pediatric care in our region.”

“WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital has been a leader in pediatric care for many years, investing in outpatient pediatric physicians to serve our community and investing in an inpatient pediatric unit when Tower 5 was built several years ago,” he said.

“Now the time has come for us to be a leader again … We look forward to serving our children in our community and helping them develop into healthy adults.

“This is a generational change, and it starts right here in the Wheeling community.”