By Mark Richardson for WVNS
In rural West Virginia towns, economic development is increasingly being built one vacant building at a time, with public agencies and nonprofit investors helping turn risky redevelopment projects into new business opportunities.
Groups such as the volunteer-led Wellsburg Urban Renewal Authority have bought and restored rundown buildings, betting storefronts and upstairs apartments could bring people back downtown.
Cindi Alkire, owner of The Kookie Jar in Wellsburg, found it turned out to be the right spot to open a brick-and-mortar location for her small business.
“We wouldn’t have been able to afford a normal building, like normal rent that most people are asking because commercial space is expensive,” Alkire explained. “That’s how they helped us get our start.”
Before opening her store, Alkire noted she baked at home and sold her cookies at farmers markets and fairs on weekends.
The authority bought the derelict buildings for $100 and rebuilt them with technical assistance and funding through the West Virginia Brownfields Assistance Center and Opportunity Appalachia. The buildings were leased at below-market rates.
A larger version of the same strategy is unfolding in Huntington, where nonprofit developer Cornerstone Community Development and a network of public, private and philanthropic partners have converted the 100-year-old former Prichard Hotel into affordable senior housing. The $50 million redevelopment used tax credits, federal housing support, and city and state development funds to create 108 apartments for older residents.
Alkire added such developments benefit the entire community.
“They not only bought the building that we’re in, they also bought two more, and they are working on rehabbing them,” she emphasized. “That will be another business that will be able to grow and thrive in the community.”
The Wellsburg and Huntington projects are a development model for rural and small-city Appalachia. In places where private capital often sees too much risk, the investments help create storefronts, apartments and community services to keep opportunity closer to home.
