Community Care of West Virginia plans to break ground in late May on a four-story facility in Buckhannon that will bring pediatric, primary care and behavioral health services under one roof — along with a community education hub and rooftop green space.
Ronna Dittman, Community Care of West Virginia’s chief of staff, outlined the project at the Feb. 11 Buckhannon-Upshur Chamber of Commerce meeting, where she shared new renderings from Thrasher, the engineering firm that has designed Community Care’s last several projects. The building will go up on the lot where the Moose Lodge used to be, on North Kanawha Street, with construction expected to take about two years. Dittman described the design as high-end, similar to Community Care’s Bridgeport location.
“We plan to break ground in late May,” Dittman said. “At this point, construction is anticipated to take two years, and that’s assuming everything runs like it’s supposed to, which rarely happens in construction.”
The first floor will house pediatrics and a pharmacy with a drive-through. Dittman said the new space will allow Community Care to offer “integrated pediatric services for young people in our community, which means social, emotional and physical services all integrated together in that space.”
The second floor will be the primary care floor. Community Care’s current primary care office on Main Street will be converted into administrative offices.
Dittman said the new building will address a growing space problem. The current Main Street location is so cramped that primary care providers have to work staggered schedules because there isn’t enough room.
“We could add several providers for primary care based on demand and need, and we don’t have the space,” Dittman said. “We have a couple that work their schedules around, so there’s two of them that aren’t always there at the same time because we’re so limited in our space.”
The third floor will house behavioral health services, including psychiatry and therapy.
Community Care’s Care Express location and its Connections office on Kanawha Street for addiction medicine services will remain where they are. The Rock Cave location will also be unaffected.
Moving behavioral health into the new building will make those services more accessible while freeing up room at the Connections office for addiction medicine services to expand.
Dittman said one of the most exciting aspects for the community is the fourth floor, which will include a large conference room capable of holding 50 to 75 people and an education hub for staff, patients and the public.
“The plan is to develop it into an education hub where we will have space to provide education for our staff and patients,” Dittman said. “Our plan is also to open up use of that facility to the community.”
The building will have parking accessible from both streets and will feature green space on the roof.
“We are going to put green space on top of the building to hang out on a sunny day, which will be nice,” Dittman said.
The groundbreaking is planned for after the Strawberry Festival.
