Work is wrapping up on the new Market Street Parking Structure in downtown Wheeling. Crews from Carl Walker Construction should be finished with the $12.3 million construction project by the end of next week. The facility today looks much like the conceptual renderings provided by architects The Mills Group more than two years ago before ground was broken at the site. (Photo Provided)

WHEELING – A new benchmark in downtown Wheeling’s revitalization is expected to be reached next week, as construction comes to a close at the site of the new Market Street Parking Structure and 11th Street between Market and Chapline streets reopens to traffic for the first time in nearly two years.

Crews from Carl Walker Construction of Pittsburgh have been using this section of 11th Street as a staging area during the construction of the new six-deck parking garage, which has a target completion date at the end of next week.

“The Market Street Parking Structure has been determined to be substantially completed by our inspectors as well as the contractor,” City Manager Robert Herron reported to Wheeling City Council on Tuesday night. “They are putting the finishing touches on the project and are going through the punch list items. We do anticipate the contractor to be completely done with that project next Friday, Sept. 13.”

Ground was officially broken on the $12.3 million parking structure project in April 2022. Prior to that the city worked with the Regional Economic Development Partnership (RED) to acquire the former Chase Bank building that stood at the site along Market Street. Raze International of Shadyside conducted the asbestos abatement and demolition of the vacant Chase Bank building to clear the property for the new parking structure. The city hired Raze at a cost of $475,000.

The site has been abuzz with activity since then over the past couple of years. While work continues along Market Street with the West Virginia Division of Highway’s $35 million Downtown Streetscape Project, work will be winding down at the new parking garage site.

Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron provides an update Tuesday night on the progress of the Market Street Parking Garage construction and the dismantling of the Center Wheeling Parking Garage. (Photo by Eric Ayres)

“We are making significant progress on that project, and we hope to have it completed and available to parkers after Sept. 13,” Herron said. “We’re still working out some of the logistics of getting into the structure as far as the electronics, etc. We hope to have those done within the next week or two to be able to begin accepting parkers in that facility within the next 10 days or so.”

The new parking structure will be fully automated, and Herron noted that the garage comes with four electric vehicle charging stations that will be available and ready to go.

“Is there a fee for the EV charging station?” Councilman Tony Assaro asked.

“There is a credit card station there,” Herron said. “I don’t know what the fee is. It is a normal fee – it’s not very much, but there is a fee to charge a car.”

Herron said the four charging stations are on the first deck of the new facility, and the parking structure has a total of 300 parking spaces. About 115 of those are already set to be leased, the city manager indicated.

“We’re opening the facility about half full,” Herron said, noting that spots will be reserved if the Wheeling Pitt Lofts project comes online, but they will be leased or otherwise will made available to the public until they are needed for those potential tenants in the future.

The first level of the facility has nearly 10,000 square feet of retail space on the street level that is being marketed by a realtor hired by the city. City leaders have indicated that the facility will be more marketable once construction crews are finished with work along Market Street, although Herron noted that there has been some interest in the retail spaces there already.

Herron added that the city administration was hopeful that 11th Street can be reopened before Carl Walker’s crews are finished with punch list items at the new parking garage.

“We’re working on some striping issues and making sure that the asphalt’s in good condition,” Herron said of this section of 11th Street. “But once the contractor is done, we do anticipate reopening that street, which has been closed for a couple of years.”

A ceremony to officially open the new downtown parking garage is expected to take place soon after next week.

Work is wrapping up on the new Market Street Parking Structure in downtown Wheeling. Crews from Carl Walker Construction should be finished with the $12.3 million construction project by the end of next week. The facility today looks much like the conceptual renderings provided by architects The Mills Group more than two years ago before ground was broken at the site. (Photo Provided)

As work on one city parking garage’s construction is wrapping up, the phase of dismantling work on another city parking garage is nearing completion.

“An update on the Center Wheeling Parking Structure demolition project – the demolition or dismantling on that project has been going very well,” Herron reported Tuesday. “We do anticipate the above-ground portion of that structure to be down by the end of this week or the beginning of next week. After that, the recycling of the material begins.”

City leaders are recycling much of the concrete from the former Center Wheeling Parking Garage site. Some of it will be used as fill material at the current site, while nearly 10,000 cubic yards of the material will be used to elevate the city’s reclaimed industrial site on 19th Street to raise the site along Wheeling Creek above the city’s floodplain elevation guidelines.

“You can already see where some of it has been separated,” Herron said of the material at the Center Wheeling Garage dismantling site. “A machine was brought in to crush the material, fill it back in at portions of the site and then also relocate some of the material over to the 19th Street site, where there is some material already there. That also will also be separated, recycled and compacted.”

Reclaim Company LLC of Fairmont was awarded a $1,638,000 contract for the dismantling of the Center Wheeling Parking Garage using money from the city’s TIF (Tax Increment Financing) Fund. Work has been going along at a steady clip there, city officials noted.

“The contract completion date on that is May 31, but that project is well ahead of schedule,” Herron said. “We are very pleased with that.”