Photo by Derek Redd Officials from WVU Medicine and other organizations break ground Tuesday at the new WVU Cancer Institute St. Joseph Regional Cancer Complex.

As several officials from both WVU Medicine and the city of Wheeling stood before the microphone Tuesday morning, many of them said that the WVU Medicine won’t just be building a new state-of-the-art facility with the upcoming WVU Cancer Institute St. Joseph Regional Cancer Complex. It will be building something just as important, if not more so — hope.

“We are building hope for countless families and reaffirming our commitment for a healthier, stronger Wheeling,” said Wheeling Mayor Denny Magruder.

Dignitaries dug shovels into ceremonial dirt near the edge of what will be a $122 million, 127,000 square foot complex that will serve as the epicenter for cancer treatment and research not just in the Friendly City, but the Ohio Valley and beyond.

WVU Medicine President and CEO Albert Wright said this new complex is a shining example of the “breakthrough work” that can be done when different groups come together under a common purpose. It was five years ago, he said, that he and other hospital officials approached Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron and then-Mayor Glenn Elliott to see what could be done with the campus of the former Ohio Valley Medical Center, which had closed in 2019 after it was bought by California-based Alecto.

That very happening — an out-of-state entity buying a hospital with no real plans for it — was exactly what WVU Medicine wanted to avoid in the Mountain State. WVU Medicine’s mission is to invest in improving healthcare throughout West Virginia, and ultimately that’s what it did with the old OVMC campus and the new regional cancer complex.

“We didn’t take the easy way out and the city didn’t take the easy way out,” Wright said. “And we were able to come together and achieve great breakthrough work to repurpose this beautiful site.”

The complex will consolidate the cancer services that had been found at WVU Medicine Wheeling and Reynolds Memorial hospitals under one roof in downtown Wheeling. Services will include infusion therapy, radiation oncology, imaging, labs, specialty clinics, and more, plus room for expansion.

The complex is scheduled to open in the fall of 2028 and represents a historic investment by WVU Medicine into downtown Wheeling, said WVU Medicine North Region President Douglass Harrison.

“This cancer complex is probably the largest investment in Wheeling in the last 50 to 100 years,” Harrison said. “We understand our role in building and investing in healthy communities, and we do not take that lightly. We’re proud to invest in communities like Wheeling and investing in healthy communities.”

Among the most important aspects of this project is the way that so many groups came together to make it a reality. Dr. Hannah Hazard-Jenkins, executive chair and director of the WVU Cancer Institute, said that collaboration is especially moving.

“One of the things that I personally took for granted that isn’t mimicked elsewhere is the commitment of every single person, not just within the health system, but within the entire state, and I think that’s really special,” Jenkins said. “We’re all here for the same reason. We’re here for the 1.7 million people that live in West Virginia and deserve high-quality healthcare and high-quality cancer care.”

That new complex also will honor the hospital that came before it, Harrison said. It will include a “history wall” that will tell the story of Ohio Valley General Hospital and OVMC and that site’s longtime devotion to making people better in the Ohio Valley.

“We want this land to continue to be a place of healing and hope,” Harrison said.

The hope of everyone involved is that the WVU Cancer Institute St. Joseph Regional Cancer Complex not only will give cancer patients the ability to receive top-notch care in their own community, but that it also will energize the neighborhood around it through increased traffic to nearby businesses.

Everyone involved Tuesday said this new complex marks a turning point in cancer care in the region.

“We are building a cancer center we hope you will never need,” Wright said, “but we will be here in the event that you do.”