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The Health Plan Spurs Optimism

“Topping out” is not a term familiar to Wheeling residents, though it is heard regularly in many other cities. But it was used here Monday, and that is cause for more than a single celebration.

On Monday, ironworkers placed the last steel beam atop the framework of the new building that will become headquarters for The Health Plan later this year. In construction workers’ parlance, the building was “topped out.”

Work on The Health Plan’s building is the first major new construction project in downtown Wheeling in about 30 years. It has been a long, frustrating dry spell in economic development.

What happened Monday is cause for celebration, of course. It also was a good time to thank officials of The Health Plan for their confidence in the future of downtown Wheeling.

Eighty of the company’s employees already are working here, in a section of the Horne’s Building adjacent to the construction site. Another 325 employees of The Health Plan will occupy the new building.

The company’s decision to move its headquarters here is both a major shot in the arm for our economy and symbolic of a change that has occurred in downtown Wheeling during the past couple of years.

Downtown Wheeling no longer is viewed as a ghost town waiting to happen. A spirit of optimism and confidence more economic development is coming have taken over.

It is based not on “whistling past the graveyard,” but on various developments and the real prospect of even more.

So, thanks to The Health Plan President and CEO Jim Pennington, both for the company’s big contribution itself and for reinforcing a spirit missing for so long from Wheeling: optimism.

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