Parkersburg Development Director Ryan Barber discusses potential changes to the Urban Renewal Authority and a land reuse agency ordinance at Tuesday night’s URA meeting. (Photo by Amber Phipps)

PARKERSBURG — Following the regular business agenda at the Parkersburg City Council meeting Tuesday night was a an Urban Renewal Authority meeting.

Parkersburg Development Director Ryan Barber told the authority, consisting of all nine members of council, that Pickering Associates has been authorized “to do a facility condition and needs assessment on” on 714 Market St.

The assessment will look at all the major functions of the structure in order to determine what needs fixed and redeveloped. The redevelopment is scheduled to be completed in May.

A discussion on the Land Reuse Agency ordinance passed in 2020 followed.

This is simply informational and for discussion purposes so we’re not asking for any votes,” Barber said.

“The primary function of a Land Reuse Agency is to take … on abandoned properties and put those back into productive use,” said Barber. “I personally think of URA as a commercial redevelopment and LRA being more residential in nature.”

LRAs have a different set of bylaws and redevelopment plans so a major distinction is the potential to use a targeted redevelopment approach in comparison to a URA.

In West Virginia, URAs are trending down from seven in the state to only four or five in operation.

The state has shifted towards LRA redevelopment approaches and has increased from two in 2018 to 16 currently in operation within the state.

What this means for Parkersburg is the potential to restructure the renewal authority membership to allow for the opportunity to focus on repurposing previously developed areas.

“There’s so many things about this that could do what we can’t do,” said Councilwoman Sharon Kuhl. “We could have a banker who could help with the bonds to do this.”

Kuhl referred to the LRA in Charleston that recently completed a million-dollar facility that was completed with the guidance and knowledge from the LRA.

“We’ve done what we can to get people to build and the LRA could take it from the level we’re at to the level we want to be at,” Kuhl said.

The restructuring of the URA would consist of including members with banking and architectural backgrounds to establish an LRA board. The understanding of the council was that the URA and LRA don’t have to be two different boards.

“We could restructure the people in the URA to include people of knowledgeable information … and then if that works out and you’re happy with it, good, and if not then you could reintroduce considering an LRA,” said Councilwoman Cathy Dailey.

The next step for council would mean continuing the discussion to weigh the available options. Furthering the conversation would include working towards the goal of revising the bylaws and restructuring the URA membership with the intent to keep eminent domain powers.

No actions were taken and the LRA renewal will be discussed at later meeting dates.

Amber Phipps can be reached at aphipps@newsandsentinel.com