By Brett Dunlap
For The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
PARKERSBURG – Wood County has some prospects in the search for economic development projects, local development officials told the Wood County Commission Monday.
Lindsey Piersol, executive director of Wood County Economic Development, and Andy Daniel, president of the Wood County Airport Authority and member of the Parkersburg-Wood County Development Authority, appeared before commissioners to give an update on potential development in the area.
First, they discussed the Community Bank project at the corner of 8th and Avery streets, where a $20 million, 22,000 square foot three-story facility is expected to open in December 2027.
“We are excited for that to be moving forward,” Piersol said.
The land is owned by the development authority and will be until the completion of the project, Piersol said, adding once it is completed the bank will buy it back for $1 to better facilitate the project.
“We had to do it that way, because they had to move because of the $150 million (East Tower) hospital expansion (at WVU Medicine Camden Clark Medical Center),” she said.
Commissioner Jimmy Colombo asked if any traffic studies had been done along Juliana Street after Parkersburg City Council passed an ordinance, on first reading, to close the part of 7th Street between Ann Street and Juliana Street for space to build the project.
Officials are concerned about how downtown traffic patterns might be affected, especially with people having to utilize 6th Street, next to the railroad piers, to get to Juliana Street and other places from downtown as opposed to using that stretch of 7th Street.
“I know the DOH (Department of Highways) has been heavily involved,” Piersol said. “If there has been a traffic study done, I haven’t seen it, but they have been coordinating with (Camden Clark).”
Piersol said the local area received money through the West Virginia Site Readiness Program for six locations — five in Wood County and one in Pleasants County, for $75,000 each. One site is on 29th Street where Dover/Parkersburg Steel was, and where studies included finding out what kinds of buildings might be built there. Other work is being done at Fort Boreman Hill and the Polymer Alliance Zone.
She said there are nine prospects for which evaluations are under way.
“They are all manufacturing related,” she said. “We have one that is evaluating two sites in Wood County.
“Another is evaluating one site that has been here twice, and that is an international company.”
Piersol talked about plans for PowerFlo Solutions to expand into the former Hino building in Williamstown and add around 120 jobs.
“I want to clarify to the public that this is not a data center,” she said. “They do make components for the data center industry, but it is not a data center.”
Many of the components Powerflo makes can be used in a wide variety of manufacturing facilities and other technological businesses like hospitals, banks, telecommunications companies and other high-power industries.
“One of their biggest clients is big tech,” she said.
Officials talked about the perceived negatives and positives of a data center project, with Piersol saying companies have been looking at West Virginia.
She spoke of an “additive manufacturing company” which has begun work on space at the West Virginia University at Parkersburg Innovation and Technology Center (ITC) near Vienna.
A delegation of Japanese companies visited the area in July looking at potential investment opportunities and for space to build business facilities.
“We have one of those visitors returning (in October),” Piersol said of interest in space at the ITC.
The development authority has eight projects geared toward business retention and expansion with one retail, two professional services and five manufacturing, she said.
“Of all five of those manufacturers, they are all looking for either a bigger space or to add on to their current space,” Piersol said. “There is a lot going on there.”
Daniel talked about development at the Mid-Ohio Valley Regional Airport. They have received requests for information about the airport.
“It is moving in the right direction,” he said, adding that although the information requests were not an acceptance letter, it was also not a rejection letter.
Over the summer of 2025, airport officials went to the Paris Air Show and talked to a number of companies about the possibility of setting up aviation-related businesses at the airport, which would create jobs and tax revenue locally. The commission approved $25,000 last November for the airport to hire a grant writer to apply for federal grants to improve water systems at the airport.
Daniel talked about water upgrades that would be handled by the Union Williams Public Service District through grants that would increase the size of fire suppression systems that would allow interested companies to build the size of facilities many have been seeking at the airport.
The airport has been looking for a new manager since Ben Auville recently stepped down from the position. Daniel said they have had 23 applicants. Phone calls are being made this week and interviews being set up.
Commissioner Jim Hamric, who serves on the airport authority, said he was informed they have had a number of airport managers from other facilities who are applicants.
The Wood County Development Authority and the Parkersburg-Wood County Area Development Corporation will hold their annual meeting at 4:30 p.m. Oct. 14 at Discovery World.
Wood County Economic Development will hold an open house at its new facility at 402 Avery St. on at 4:30 p.m. Oct. 20.
The commission went into an executive session with Piersol and Daniel for a short time to discuss specific details on two of the unnamed potential development projects.
Read more from The Parkersburg News and Sentinel here
The post Wood County Commission discusses development in the area appeared first on West Virginia Press Association.
