WVDOH Announces Stone Arch Bridge in Elm Grove To Close for Repairs in March
Derek Redd Trending
WHEELING -- The Stone Arch Bridge in Elm Grove, after sitting in limbo for years, will temporarily close for repairs starting in March.
West Virginia Division of Highway officials said the bridge, the oldest extant bridge in the state at around 207 years old, is at a critical period and needing repair. But that closure will eliminate one of the main throughways in the Elm Grove neighborhood of Wheeling.
Charlie Reynolds, the district manager over District 6 for the West Virginia Division of Highways, said a concrete date for the closure has yet to be decided. That will be up to the contractors. The bridge is expected to be closed until the end of the year.
The bridge, built in 1817, spans Little Wheeling Creek and is part of U.S. 40. That part of the highway connects the Kruger Street and Elm Terrace areas of Elm Grove to businesses like Patsy's Pizza and Wesbanco's Elm Grove branch. Without the bridge to use, motorists will have to drive around the area to cross the creek.
The official detour, Reynolds said, is Interstate 70. With that detour, a person driving U.S. 40 from Triadelphia would hop on I-70 and exit at Washington Avenue and double back to get to the other side of the bridge.
There are other ways around the construction area, Reynolds said, but DOH has I-70 as the official detour because that is the way all vehicles can use. Some other local detours aren't viable for large vehicles like tractor-trailers.
Work on the Stone Arch Bridge originally was set to begin in July 2021, but the project was mired from then until now in legal proceedings between the state and Elm Grove Pharmacy. DOH had wanted to use a small part of the pharmacy's back parking lot. Pharmacy owner Anthony Martino countered that using that piece of the parking lot was unnecessary for the project and he was protecting his rights as a property owner.
Reynolds said Tuesday that the case was decided in a manner that allowed DOH to begin work in March.
Meanwhile, another bridge in the area -- the Aetnaville Bridge spanning the back channel of the Ohio River between Wheeling Island and Bridgeport -- has been scheduled for demolition. Reynolds said work will begin on that demolition on July 28, 2025, and will last for about a year.
The Aetnaville Bridge, built in 1891, was closed to vehicular traffic in December 1988 and closed to pedestrians in 2016. It has been barricaded since then.
The project has a $2.5 million price tag and is being put out for bid, Reynolds said.
Once a popular span for joggers and cyclists, Reynolds said the bridge had outlived its use and needed to come down for safety reasons.
"We've had some problems with people still crossing it, cutting the gates open and coming through," Reynolds said. "We even had a track team running across it. It's in pretty bad shape. When you leave something like that sit, it just gets worse and deteriorates over time."
In 2020, West Virginia officials solicited bidders to buy the bridge, but none came forward.