Angelina Stone & Marble employees Chuck Scott, foreground, and David Campbell work on constructing a monument sign for West Virginia Northern Community College at the corner of 16th and Main Streets. (Photo by Scott McCloskey)

WHEELING — West Virginia Northern Community College officials are extremely excited with the progress being made on outdoor renovations to the school’s downtown Wheeling campus, and how well it will mirror the city’s upcoming streetscape project.

As Savage Construction crews of Wheeling move forward with building a large greenspace and parking area located on the south side of the college’s B&O Building, crews with Angelina Stone & Marble of Bridgeport are putting the finishing touches on a decorative pillar at the corner of 16th and Main Street that will serve as the base for one of three monument signs the school will erect in different locations around their campus, according to West Virginia Northern Community College CFO Jeff Sayre.

Sayre also said a stormwater management retention pond is being implemented as part of the greenspace design plans. It was back in December when the City of Wheeling approved closing a small section of 18th Street to allow Northern to extend its parking and green space area to the edge of Wheeling Creek. Sayre said he believes city officials have “a little bit of vision of developing the creek bank” near the B&O Building.

“We started in the fall of 2020 back here moving the dirt around,” Sayre explained. “We over engineer everything. We go above and beyond the city’s specifications.”

David Barnhart, director of marketing and public relations at WVNCC, said the recent removal of a large amount of unsightly bushes and brush along the edge of Chapline Street next to the construction site has really “opened up” that part of town to the campus.

“You couldn’t even see the bridge or down by the creek because there was so much brush there,” Barnhart commented. He added that all the college’s new renovations will really “mirror and match” much of the city’s upcoming streetscape project.

Sayre said Northern Community College has experienced a “great partnership” with city officials on the new extended parking area behind the B&O Building. He said the college even brought in an arborist to help clean up the hillside and cultivate the area near the creek bank.

Another element college officials have added to the greenspace is the positioning of large stones that were once part of the foundation of the railroad trestle that ran across the B&O building.

“So we like our historical connection. We know what we got and every chance that we can make a reference to it — that’s what we do,” Sayre explained. “We are environmentally conscious as we should be, what we’re going to have here is called ‘a rain garden’ in the middle (of the lot).”

Sayre said the college also is constructing three new “monument” signs in different locations around campus. The first sign is currently being built on the corner of 16th and Main Street near one of the school’s recently constructed parking areas. There are plans to include trees and shrubbery and erect an “ornamental fence” around that lot as well, according to Sayre.

A second sign will be built on the south side of the school along Market Street, with a third sign being placed near the school’s visitor parking lot along Chapline Street. Sayre said school officials hope to complete the monument signs by early summer and believe they will help create some nice gateways for visitors coming into the downtown area and remind them they are officially entering the campus area of West Virginia Northern Community College.

“What we really want is for people to feel like they are on our campus even though we are part of the city,” Sayre commented. Including the B&O building as their centerpiece, the college has five buildings on their downtown Wheeling campus.

Officials with Wallace Pancher Group of St. Clairsville, the architect and engineer for the WVNCC project, said the look of the new lot and greenspace areas will be compatible with what people can expect to see with the downtown Wheeling streetscape project. Wallace Pancher is also working on the city’s upcoming streetscape project.