By Mary Wade Burnside
FAIRMONT — If Highland Hospital takes over the building that United Hospital Center leaves behind after moving to a new facility off Interstate 79, nearly 400 new jobs will be created in Clarksburg and the problem of what to do with the old UHC will be solved.
Highland Hospital, a nonprofit, in-patient facility based in Charleston that offers psychiatric and substance abuse services, has put a $1 million “earnest money” deposit in escrow as details such as a certificate of need from the West Virginia Health Care Authority are worked out.
However, if all goes as planned, UHC will give the building to Highland, which then will do $34 million in renovations.
“We will start with a small number of beds and it will go up as we finish remodeling,” said David McWatters, the president and CEO of Highland Hospital. “We will have a maximum capacity of 320 patients and staffing for that would be 386.”
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