Brooke Board, BDC team up to find new use for surplus school buildings
The Business Development Corp. of the Northern Panhandle is teaming with the Brooke County Board of Education to repurpose school buildings in Follansbee and Wellsburg that won’t be needed once their new, consolidated middle school is up and running.
The board, which will retain ownership of the properties, tasked the BDC with figuring out the next best use for the two properties.
BDC Executive Director Pat Ford said Brooke County is not the first to be “strapped with abandoned surplus school properties, which can be directly linked to not having the internal capacity to manage abandoned buildings and properties proactively or, worse, trying to market them on their own without engaging external economic development agencies.”