Two apartment buildings, totaling a planned 122 units, are laying the physical and administrative groundwork for future construction on both corners of the T-intersection where Northwestern Avenue meets Chestnut Ridge Road.
The sites lay in close proximity to the WVU Medicine campus. The bright colors of WVU Medicine Golisano Children’s Hospital, some 1,500 feet away as the crow flies, draws the eye when standing at the intersection.
The other end of the short stretch of road that is Northwestern Avenue forms the four-way intersection with Medical Center Drive and Willowdale Road on its other end.
While their respective applications before the Monongalia County Planning Commission were made by different entities at different times, the developments have been identified under the same name, The Malone, and share Scott Copen with Cheat Road Engineering as the engineer of record.
In December 2024, the MCPC provided a development of significant impact approval for one building containing 32 one-bedroom and 40 two-bedroom apartments on 1.77 acres on the southern corner of the Chestnut Ridge Road, Northwestern Avenue intersection.
According to the county assessor’s office, RDR Properties LLC purchased the property from Church Communities for $1.8 million in January.
The estimated $12 million to $15 million development is to be five stories with a portion of the fifth floor serving as a splash pad for residents. It includes a total of 110 underground and ground level parking spaces.
In addition to the planning commission’s DSI approval and the subsequent variance approvals from the county’s board of zoning appeals tied to the width of parking stalls and a planned one-way drive isle, a permit to begin grubbing and grading work has been issued. That work is underway.
Andrew Gast-Bray, the county’s director of planning, said the land use permit that would allow construction to begin has not yet been granted.
Earlier this week, the MCPC provided DSI approval for the construction of a single five-story building with 50 one-bedroom units for the .89 acres directly across the street – at the northern corner of the Chestnut Ridge Road, Northwestern Avenue intersection.
The assessor’s office lists the owner of that property as Star LLC.
That project will go before the county’s board of zoning appeals next week to request two variances – one to reduce the width of the 54 planned parking spaces from 10 feet to nine feet, and one to reduce the landscape buffer from 10 feet to five feet.
Gast-Bray explained that split between the two DSI approvals is a commitment to extend, fix and/or replace stormwater infrastructure and construct a sidewalk along Northwestern Avenue.
