MORGANTOWN – It appears as if the Monongalia County Commission is jumping on an opportunity to purchase property in downtown Morgantown.
As part of the commission’s regular Wednesday agenda, the body is scheduled to take up the purchase of five parcels totaling one-half acre from Morgantown Community Resources – the nonprofit that serves as facilitator and landlord for Hazel’s House of Hope.
The property sits adjacent to the Monongalia County Sheriff’s Department and is the former site of the The Salvation Army building and thrift store.
The three main parcels have frontage along University Avenue. All five are clustered around the Court Street, University Avenue intersection.
MCR received the property as a gift from the Hazel Ruby McQuain Charitable Trust, which purchased it from The Salvation Army in July 2024. According to the Monongalia County Assessor’s office, the sale price of the property was $1.36 million.
MCR didn’t list the property for sale, but approached the county about purchasing it. The commission said it would be interested if the structures were razed and the property was cleared, so MCR cleared the land.
Monongalia County Commission President Jeff Arnett said the commission will consider purchasing it from MCR for $815,000.
“For MCR, they got it for no money, and the new deed into them had a restriction that it couldn’t be used for another nonprofit, social services type place. Basically, they didn’t want to have another competing entity come in. So, a municipal use, or county use, we can use it for pretty much whatever we want,” Arnett said. “But there had been a restriction that might have limited their marketability, and that restriction may have come in the deed from Salvation Army to MCR. Either way, that would have been a condition [MCR] would have wanted to place anyway when they sold it.”
As for the county’s plans, they’re not all that exciting – at least in the short term.
“For now, I think the plans would be to extend our parking for our courthouse and other downtown county buildings. For now, that’s the immediate use; something fairly quickly that could be converted to that use,” Arnett said. “Long term, it just seemed like a real opportunity. It’s not often you have the ability to pick up a piece of real estate that close to your footprint.”
