With 25 facilities spread across the state, and beyond, WVU Health System is taking the fight to the chronic disease and health challenges that have plagued West Virginia.
As with any sustained campaign, establishing and protecting supply lines is crucial to victory.
On Monday, Owens & Minor and WVU Health System came together to hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the 350,000 square-foot distribution center that will be the heart of that logistical effort.
Located on 30 acres off Rail Street in the lower portion of the Morgantown Industrial Park, the facility has 50 truck docks and is built for 40 more if and when they’re needed.
Owens & Minor CEO Ed Pesicka said trucks will roll in and out of the highly-automated facility at all hours, getting medical supplies in the hands of the people who need them each morning.
It will do so through the use of robotics and other state-of-the-art technology, allowing a 30% improvement in capacity efficiency over traditional warehouses, according to company representatives. That, in turn, will allow the 140 or so initial employees to more quickly turn bulk supply shipments into deliveries tailored to each medical facility.
Penske Logistics will handle the transportation, covering the entire state – plus some stops in Ohio, Maryland and Pennsylvania – with seven routes.
“As we celebrate the grand opening today, it’s not just the bricks and mortar of what you see here. This is really about our ability to solve a complex problem. If you think about the complexity of distribution within the state of West Virginia, that’s what this enables us to do … Our customers are the ones that are advancing healthcare, and we’re here to support them,” Pesicka said.
WVU Health System CEO Albert Wright said the partnership helps reinforce the overall goal of generational change.
He explained the system was founded by an act of the West Virginia Legislature in 1996 to defend against for profit, out-of-state entities by creating a health system that would be of a size and scale to remain locally owned and controlled.
While it’s been successful in spreading across the Mountain State over the last 30 years, COVID proved there are still significant vulnerabilities.
“Coming out of COVID, things we took for granted, like personal protective equipment and supplies and things, were no longer to be taken for granted. I remember being in a command center over at Ruby Memorial, talking with our hospital leaders and trying to figure out what type of trash bags we could put over our people to protect them. Our volunteers were sewing masks, you know,” Wright said.
“One of the things we wanted to do was make sure that we always had a supply partner that was going to be visible and available to us – that would make a commitment in West Virginia, you know, to work with us on economic development.”
During his remarks, Pesicka alluded to the fact that the distribution center’s opening was “long overdue.”
It was initially supposed to be located in the WestRidge development and open by late 2023.
Instead, that’s approximately when Owens & Minor sued WestRidge to terminate the original lease, claiming the developer breached the agreement and tried to use deadlines spelled out in a $15 million grant from the West Virginia Development Office as leverage to “strongarm” the company into altering the lease terms.
WestRidge countersued, claiming it was Owens & Minor that violated the lease by failing to provide the guidance needed to construct the facility.
That suit remains open in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia.
In the case of both WestRidge and the Morgantown Industrial Park, the infrastructure – water, sewer, electricity, roads – needed to support the development was funded through tax increment financing as both locations are within TIF districts.
“Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been developed,” Monongalia County Commission President Jeff Arnett said, adding, “I can’t even imagine the jobs that are created here, and the number of people that are going to be able to create their lives in our county as a result of having a facility here like this. It’s truly remarkable.”
