PARKERSBURG — Right behind the bus stop on 10th and Market streets in Parkersburg is a beautiful apartment building. The Virginia Apartments has balconies that residents adorn with colorful flowers and plants. But next door, wild vines grow up the brick walls of an abandoned office building that’s been vacant since at least 2003.
Waiting for the bus with his son, John Parsons said he wished the city did more about vacant, abandoned and dilapidated buildings.
“I wish they would do more with these vacant buildings other than just tear them down,” Parsons said, the contrast of the two buildings looming behind him as he waited for the bus.
With the help of money from a state grant program, Parkersburg has made progress, tearing down dozens of abandoned properties over the last 18 months.
But its need is far greater. And statewide, officials estimate another $150 million or more is needed to help communities like Parkersburg deal with dilapidated properties.
Parkersburg officials say their hope is that the vacant spaces are appealing to new local businesses.
“Like most downtown communities, we do have empty spaces, lots and buildings,” said Amanda Stevens, the executive director of Downtown PKB, an organization that works to “enhance, revitalize and aesthetically improve downtown Parkersburg.”
“The good news is that several downtown businesses are working on expansion and many of these empty spaces will hopefully soon have new life breathed into them,” she added.
Indeed, signs promoting a new development in a vacant lot where the Wood County Senior Citizens Center once stood can be seen clearly.
Like many communities across West Virginia, Parkersburg has been facing a problem with vacant, abandoned and dilapidated properties, and has been tearing down buildings for the past few years to address the blight issue.
Last year, the city tore down an old locksmith building and two residential structures on 19th and Dudley streets as well as a former hotel on 7th Street, before the structures became bigger nuisances — of vagrancy, fires and drugs — to the community, according to news reports. The 7th Street site is now being considered as a potential location for a new fire station.
Ryan Barber, the development director for the city, said that state funding gave them the opportunity to address the safety and blight concerns the city had for years. The city used $650,000 in West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection money to tear down an estimated 50 to 75 structures in 18 months, according to Barber.
But Barber said there’s a lot more work to be done. “It’s hard to say how many more will be needing demolition,” he said.
Statewide, phase one of the project cost almost $10 million for 26 communities to tear down an estimated 780 structures, according to a report to the Legislature. In phase two, another $20 million will go to 68 participants, which include cities and municipalities,to tear down over 1,000 structures, the report said.
The report also said that once both phases of the program are completed, more than 80 communities and counties in West Virginia would have participated in demolishing over 2,000 structures.
But it warned, “much remains to be done” to fully address the issue: More than 8,000 residential and commercial structures need to be demolished, at a cost estimated by communities at nearly $150 million.
The City of Parkersburg once kept a registry, in which, for $100 a month, owners could list their properties. In return, the city would use the funds to demolish buildings.
Andy Nestor, Parkersburg code chief, said that it took too much manpower to ensure the buildings were not only up to code, but vacant.
Currently, there is a list kept by the city’s Urban Renewal Authority, where parcels of vacant land can be sought for purchase and potential redevelopment, but there is no list of vacant structures waiting to be torn down.
With a few hours walking around downtown Parkersburg, you can see what Nestor is talking about.
Starting off on 7th Street you can spot businesses like an old diner, whose old dining stools sit covered in dust. Next, one door down from the diner, what seemed to be an antique store, has left behind their bric-a-brac collecting dust and cobwebs.
Over on Market Street a dozen or more empty businesses, such as art galleries, tattoo shops and financial planning agencies also sit vacant.
In contrast, a block west from the Virginia Apartments at 10th and Market Street sits the historic Julia-Ann Square District. Here, over 100 homes are well-maintained, despite being built between 1850 and 1910.
But as the city continues to tear down structures, increasingly empty lots and paved parking replace residential homes and commercial spaces, leaving residents wishing that more be done to restore Parkersburg to its old glory.
“We don’t need any more parking lots out here,” said Katrina Keller, who works at Atkinson Bonding on Avery Street.
Keller is surrounded by vacant properties while she works. In a three block radius there are numerous vacant homes, business and empty grassy lots, and within a stone throw, there are at least four large parking lots.
“I wish that they would actually revamp this area down here and bring it back to how it used to be,” she said. “People would come down here and stroll, with little shops and stuff.”