photo by: Eric Ayres

Residents gather on 15th Street in East Wheeling on Thursday night during the Clay School Community Block Party. The event was held to discuss findings of a community survey as the city decides what the future of the former school property will be.

WHEELING — The future of the former Clay School in East Wheeling is being mapped out one idea at a time — not just ideas from city leaders or professional consultants, but from many other stakeholders who call the neighborhood their home.

A Clay School Community Block Party was held Thursday night outside the hulking building that has sat vacant for many years along 15th Street. The event was designed as an engaging way to gather input from members of the community, many of whom live in East Wheeling near the building and some who even have fond memories attending school there.

“This is community engagement at its best,” Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron said.

The Clay School first opened more than 80 years ago and operated for decades as part of the public school system before closing its doors in the 1990s. There have been several attempts to bring a new life to the four-story, 30,000-square-foot building since then, but no ventures have ever brought a true redevelopment of the property.

In December of 2021, the city of Wheeling acquired the structure. City council in February hired consultant Tipping Point to provide a conceptual redevelopment plan for the Clay School property. The city launched an online survey in June aimed to provide a forum for residents to express their opinions, share insights and contribute to the decision making process regarding the school property’s revitalization.

“When we look back and the story of Clay School and what happened in this area is told, you can now say you were a part of what happened,” Ron Scott of Men of Change told the crowd on hand Thursday night. “Now it’s us with an actual voice that can actually contribute to change and make sure that we have a hand with what happens with this building that has been seminal to our community and a part of it that has always been there. We have input on it, and it feels like we have a stake in it.

“This is historic, if you ask me. Because no one has cared about our opinion before, and they do now. And we need to make sure that it’s heard.”

Jim Ambrose of Tipping Point outlined some of the results of the survey that was presented to the community in June. A total of 1,094 respondents took part, and 65% of the participants were under the age of 50. Around 69% of the respondents live immediately close to the Clay School – half of which just recently moved to the area and half who have lived in the area for a long time.

“I think that this site is going to be a really cool melting pot of what it could be and what has been as well,” Ambrose said.

photo by: Eric Ayres

Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron speaks to the crowd Thursday night during the Clay School Community Block Party.

A key decision that ultimately must be made is whether the school should be demolished and the property redeveloped or if the building should be saved and redeveloped using tax credits and any other resources that may be available to rehabilitate the building for a new use. While the site has plenty of history, the architectural value of the boxy, nondescript structure is not a selling point, city leaders have stressed.

“If we leave it to sit here like this, eventually it’s going to fall down,” said Wheeling resident Nelson Croft, a former deputy sheriff who lives in Elm Grove, but has strong roots connected to the East Wheeling neighborhood. “I’d like to see commercial tenants come in to create some tax revenue that can help pay for some of the cost of redevelopment. Of course, when it comes to commercial use, it would be great to try to keep it local, too.”

Some of the top things people who participated in the survey deemed to be assets to the area were diversity, proximity to downtown, strong community organizations, neighborhood pride and emerging amenities.

“Ironically, 72% of the people said they have never been inside of the building,” Ambrose said of the survey results about the Clay School. “Maybe that’s because it’s been shut down for a bit.”

A majority of people surveyed agreed with the concept of relocating the Nelson Jordan Center to the site. The Nelson Jordan Center in East Wheeling is the city’s only indoor recreation facility has been aging and has been in need of updating. Many respondents would like to see indoor recreation facilities that complement the relatively new, multimillion-dollar J.B. Chambers Memorial Recreation Park directly across 15th Street.

“It has a lot of potential,” said Vincent O’Leary, a faculty member at Wheeling Central Catholic High School, noting that a facility to enhance use of the ball fields there could benefit local people who use the facility and visitors to the park as well. “It would be great to have locker rooms for teams that use the field.”

The biggest fear survey takers noted was the cost associated with the site’s redevelopment, Ambrose said. Responders feared that it may be too expensive to build a new facility there, and the ongoing price of operational costs could be high, as well. Another fear was getting people to agree on a plan.

“And that’s precisely why we’re here today,” Ambrose said.

The city of Wheeling, Tipping Point, Wheeling Heritage and Men of Change collaborated to host the Clay School Community Block Party, which broke into groups by topics of youth, education, recreation, housing and other key subjects to further share ideas. Participants also took part in live voting on issues via phones, as presenters led the discussion with slides projected onto a large, inflatable screen on the football field.

“This needs to be somewhere safe for kids to go,” said neighborhood resident Jo Davis, who attended Clay School when it was in operation. Davis and other residents noted that the area has not been known as one of the safest places in the city, and it was hoped that future investments and revitalization will help create a more vibrant and safer environment for families who live in the area.

Scores of people agreed on many of these topics, but there was not consensus on everything.

“One of the things that people did not agree on whenever we asked was whether we should demolish this or save the building,” Ambrose said. “There was almost a perfect 50-50 split on how you go about redeveloping the site.”

The proposed uses suggested by the community will be used to help determine the consultant’s recommendation to Wheeling City Council as to how to best tap into the property’s best and most financially feasible potential.

Ward 3 Councilwoman Rosemary Ketchum, who represents the East Wheeling neighborhood, said it was great to see the city and a number of local organizations coming together to do a deep dive into community polling and dialogue to carve out a collaborative plan for an important part of the neighborhood’s future.

“That just doesn’t happen too frequently, and this is the first time I’ve seen it happen in the city,” Ketchum said. “I think this is a great example of what it looks like to take on a big project with an entire community behind you.”

Ketchum said she hoped Thursday night’s event serves as a model for future endeavors in the city that need to be driven by the community’s voice.