Creative Reuse
Giving New Life
to West Virginia’s Buildings
OLIVIA MILLER
West Virginia’s shortage of flat, developable land is no
secret. While the mountainous geography offers beautiful
scenery and some of the best tourism-related activities in the
country, those hills and valleys create quite a challenge for
developers hired to build new housing and state-of-the-art
business centers. As West Virginia evolves to meet the needs
of today’s businesses and communities, some are turning this
challenge into an opportunity for creative problem solving.
Building on solid bones, developers are meeting commercial
and residential space demands while solving the challenge
of preventing vacant buildings from becoming eye sores and
redeveloping dilapidated downtowns.
In a showcase of renovation and repurpose successes, the
following projects have given new life to existing structures in
the Mountain State that had become outdated or whose original
purpose was no longer relevant.
The interior renovation of what is now the Jack Caffrey Arts and Cultural Center.
Photo by The Thrasher Group. BEFORE
Photo by Warrior Creek Development. AFTER
Jack Caffrey Arts and Cultural Center
In 2017, the city of Welch, WV, found itself in search of a
space to preserve and display the rich history of McDowell
County. Town leadership envisioned a multipurpose space that
would pay tribute to the past, reawaken the area’s heritage and
reimagine the town’s future through arts and education. The
location they chose for this community hub was a building that
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WEST VIRGINIA EXECUTIVE