Community collaborating with WVU Medicine Golisano Children’s on new outpatient center

Early next year, Ohio Valley families will have a place specifically for their children to address their medical needs, thanks to WVU Medicine Golisano Children’s. And many organizations across the Ohio Valley are lending their hands in making it somewhere where those children can feel comfortable and cared for.

Construction continues to advance on the upcoming WVU Medicine Golisano Children’s Robert Sonneborn Family Pediatric Outpatient Center. The new center will be located on the campus of WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital. It will feature around 40 examination rooms, separate wings for sick visits and well visits, an afterhours clinic and an Austin’s Playroom, a playroom provided by the Mario Lemieux Foundation that enhances a child’s hospital stay by giving them a cheerful, relaxing area for them and their siblings to enjoy.

The $16 million project is scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2027.

A recent tour of the facility offered a new look at what the center will provide. The two wings each will have different color schemes — green in the well visit wing and blue for the sick visit wing. Exam rooms will have windows that look out on the West Virginia landscape, but will also provide the proper privacy precautions for patients and their families.

Jessica Moore, associate vice president of foundation and community relations for WVU Medicine’s North Region, said the center will include several enhancements provided in collaboration with groups from around the area, starting with the main reception area. Panhandle Cleaning & Restoration is sponsoring that area with a $150,000 donation. Part of the decorations there will be the handprints of all 17 grandchildren of Panhandle President Robert Contraguerro Sr.

The exam rooms will each have an Oglebay Park-themed wall that will have a seek-and-find component designed to keep children occupied as they wait. Those walls will be created by West Liberty University art students.

“These walls are sponsored by Oglebay,” Moore said. “And there are five different murals that will rotate through every exam room.”

West Liberty University graphic design students will have their chance to help by creating a circus-themed mural in another part of the center in honor of Circus Saints and Sinners’ longtime support of WVU Medicine Golisano Children’s.

Local high school CTE students also will join the fun. There will be two sites for sculptures featuring the WVU Medicine Golisano Children’s logo — four multicolored cookie-cutter children. One sculpture will be of the four children stacked on top of each other holding a kite, which will be created by John Marshall High School CTE students. Another site will have the four children standing as individual sculptures. Those will be created by Wheeling Park High School CTE students.

And in the waiting room of the sick clinic and afterhours lobby, the Riccadonna family will sponsor “Bruno’s Wall,” an area where four video screens will rotate photos of Ohio Valley pets. Moore said families can have their pets on the screen via a donation to the center.

“It’s just a way to continue to engage,” Moore said. “Thinking about my dog sitting there making sick kids smile is wonderful.”

Moore said the “Bruno’s Wall” project will likely begin at the end of the year.

WVU Medicine North Region President Douglass Harrison said this new center will be family-focused and a hub for Ohio Valley families to make sure their children get the best care.

“We want this to be the place where families can come and get their children treated,” he said. “We’ve always wanted this to be a one-stop shop, where they don’t have to drag their kids through the hospital for imaging, for labs and for sick visits. It’s one location, convenient to get in and get out of.”