KANAWHA CITY, W.Va. — A year-long project begins Monday to repair the three-story headquarters of the state Department of Environmental Protection building in Charleston’s Kanawha City.
The state is paying a contractor $9.7 million to replace the building’s HVAC system, repair the roof, reseal the dozens of windows in the building and fix expansion joints.
The work is expected to take about a year to complete, DEP Spokesman Terry Fletcher told MetroNews.
“These are upgrades that are a bit overdue that we need to get taken care of to maintain safety and comfortableness of our public workers and just for the efficiencies of the building,” Fletcher said.
There are 618 state workers in the building including 448 employees of the DEP. Other state agencies there include PEIA, the state Consolidated Public Retirement Board, the division of Real Estate and Rehabilitation Services. The DEP takes up the top two floors, the other state agencies occupy the ground floor.
Fletcher said the building, which originally opened in 2004 after costing nearly $22 million to build, will still be open to the public but the access will be limited.
“We’ll still have staff there but we really encourage folks to reach out first via phone or email and then we can work from there whether or not they need to come into the building,” Fletcher said.
The front side of the building, which faces north, will be worked on during the first six months. The backside of the building will be the focus of work beginning in April. State workers will be shifted around inside. Fletcher said some may have to work from home for a while.
“We’re doing that on a case-by-case basis, where we need key folks to stay in the office they will have priority and other folks will work remotely where needed.”
Fletcher said roughly 370 of the building’s 618 workers will be impacted during the first phase of work.
“Although these projects will cause some short-term inconvenience, they are critical investments in the long-term safety and efficiency of the WVDEP headquarters,” WVDEP Cabinet Secretary Harold Ward said in a news release. “We appreciate the public’s patience and understanding as we work through this transition.”