West Virginia's three-member Health Care Cost Review Authority is weighing a Certificate of Need application from Valley Health to construct a $30 million facility to replace the 62-year-old War Memorial Hospital.

"This is a very significant project for us," explained Wes Williams, vice president for community relations at Valley Health, which is based in Winchester.

But plans for the new hospital will remain in limbo until HCCRA delivers a decision, said Williams, who added that a ruling isn't likely to be handed down before January.

Valley Health's application is being challenged by West Virginia University Hospitals-East, which is made up of City Hospital in Martinsburg and Jefferson Memorial Hospital in Ranson.

Albert Pilkington III, who has served since January as WVUH-East's CEO, plans to attend the HCCRA hearing in Charleston, as will Thomas Jones, the CEO of WVUH-East's parent company, West Virginia University Hospitals.

WVUH-East last year declined to pursue an effort to buy War Memorial. Valley Health — which since 1989 has contracted with the hospital's owner, the Morgan County Commission to manage War Memorial — submitted the sole bid.

Meanwhile Valley Health is moving ahead with plans to use a $20 million bond sale to build a new hospital in Hampshire County. Construction is to begin later this month on the 65,000-square-foot facility that is set to open in 2011. HCCRA in December OK'd Valley Health's application for that project.

Williams said that WVUH-East's opposition to the Berkeley Springs project will make construction there more expensive.

"That's one of the advantages of a weak economy — you can build for less — but now it looks as if we won't be able to take advantage of that timing as we'd hoped," Williams said.

Members of the Morgan County Commission and others also have expressed frustration that the building project will be delayed. Others worry the project could end up scrapped altogether.

“We see the exciting things [Valley Health is] doing in Hampshire County and say ‘That could be us,’ ” lamented Neil McLaughlin, president of War Memorial Hospital, in a news release. “They have been an excellent partner in supporting and advancing the services we offer here."

Valley Health is a non-profit health system with 5,000 employees and nearly 500 physicians. Its largest facility is Winchester Medical Center; it operates three other hospitals in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley along with Hampshire Memorial Hospital in Romney.