By: Lydia Crawley
The Parsons Advocate
Prodigy has begun construction on an acre and a half piece of land purchased through the Tucker County Commission and the Tucker County Development Authority near Camp Kidd. The land is intended to hold a maintenance building for the company to assist with the ongoing broadband internet rollout in the Tucker County area, according to Tucker County Commission Administrator Shelia DeVilder. “I think they are going to be a really good team player, as far as working with Tucker County and helping us to get the services our citizens need and also working with us to help us in ways that benefit the overall County, as well,” DeVilder said.
Prodigy purchased approximately an acre and a half of land near the Cheat River, according to DeVilder. “Prodigy purchased the land,” DeVilder said. “Its about an acre and a half, I think.”
The land purchased was not land the County had plans to develop, according to DeVilder. “They purchased a section of land that we would not be using for anything,” DeVilder said.
The purchased was facilitated through the Tucker County Development Authority, according to DeVilder with control of the land being given to the Authority prior to the sale. “We gave the land to our Development Authority and the Development Authority sold it to Prodigy,” DeVilder said. “Its kind of the way we had to do it in order to sell property.”
The land is slated to hold a maintenance building for the company to assist with the company’s broadband rollout in Tucker County, DeVilder said. “Prodigy is putting in a maintenance building because they need a place to have their vehicles where they can work on them, their supplies, have everything for the lines that they are running, so that they don’t have to travel back and forth to Preston County for the high speed internet,” DeVilder said.
According to DeVilder, Prodigy has approval to move ahead with the project. “They got their approval to go ahead and begin work on the project,” DeVilder said. “I think everything else is in place. They were just waiting on the U.S. Government to say, ‘yeah, you’re permitted, you can start whenever.’”
With approval to start the broadband rollout in the County, Prodigy wanted to have the maintenance building in place to assist crews and make retrieval of supplies smoother, DeVilder said. “So they’re ready to start, but they want this building in the interim so they don’t have to travel back and forth to get supplies, they have them on this end as well as that end so its in closer proximity to where they are working,” DeVilder said.
According to DeVilder, Prodigy had agreed to excavate land next to their lot in preparation for the County to construct a storage building next to where Prodigy is building their maintenance building. DeVilder said the storage building is much needed by the County and the two projects are slated to be side by side making excavation easy for the crew. “It will assist the County because in their process of cleaning everything out down there, they are going to level off a space – because our property is right beside there – so they are going to level off a space and we are going to be able to put a storage building, which is much needed for down there,” DeVilder said “It won’t cost us anything to level it off or anything because they are doing all the excavation work for their building so its not a big deal for them to level a little spot for us while they’re at it,.”
DeVilder said that once construction is complete, the crews have left the area and Prodigy no longer have use of the building, ownership will revert to the County. “When they no longer need it, they’re out of the area, they no longer need a maintenance building, it will revert back to the County,” DeVilder said.
As part of the deal with Prodigy, DeVilder said the County also will get free wifi and internet, as well. “We get free internet for our use down there they’ve gave that to us in the process free wifi and internet,” DeVilder said.
DeVilder called the agreement a win-win for Tucker County. “So it was a win-win for the County,” DeVilder said. “Prodigy is a win-win for the County.”
