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Wheeling Gateway Center Project Receives $4.4 Million State Grant

photo by: Joselyn King

Frank O'Brien, executive director of the Wheeling/Ohio County Convention and Visitors Bureau, stands with West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice during a grant check presentation ceremony Thursday. The event took place at demolition site of the former Wheeling Inn downtown and future location of the Wheeling Gateway Center.

WHEELING — Gov. Jim Justice said the captain of his West Virginia State Police detail is always asking him why he comes to Wheeling so often.

On Tuesday, he came to town to bring a $4.4 million check for a major downtown revitalization project. The AML Economic Revitalization grant is for the Wheeling Gateway Center project, a plan to transform the former Wheeling Inn property into a 20,000-square-foot visitors center.

The center will feature a heritage museum, event space, retail shops, a marquee restaurant, and outdoor plazas at the base of the historic Wheeling Suspension Bridge.

Much of the old hotel structure already has been demolished, and Justice gathered with local officials at the site Tuesday to present the money and say a few words prior to next week’s election.

“(The police captain) says we have been to Wheeling more than any town in the state ‘over and over,'” Justice said. “We have been to Wheeling more than the last 14 governors in a row have been to Wheeling. It’s been a great big pleasure to me.

“You have a great, incredible town. You have unbelievable potential in all the areas – from gas, to tourism to on and on and on. You have so much.”

Justice noted the future welcome center will be the first of its kind in the state in that it will be located off of a major highway with the intent of bringing visitors downtown.

“We’re going to give them a great taste of West Virginia, and we’re going to have them enjoy all this great community has to offer,” he said.

Justice credited Wheeling Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director Frank O’Brien with approaching him with the idea of creating a state welcome center in downtown Wheeling. A meeting between the two and Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron took place in 2023 on an outdoor patio at WesBanco Arena, where they looked out on the completion of the $200 million Interstate 70 bridge rehabilitation project, O’Brien said.

“As he was leaving, Bob Herron and I followed him out to his SUV. The door was open, he let us approach, and in five minutes we pitched him on this project,” O’Brien continued. “He said, ‘I don’t see a reason why we shouldn’t do something like this.’ That was the support and direction from the state we needed to start.”

Chelsea Ruby, West Virginia Secretary of Tourism, noted the new welcome center will replace one along I-70 near Dallas Pike that has “been closed for a couple of years.”

Secondly, the project opens up sight lines to the river — permitting passers-by a view of the Wheeling Suspension Bridge they previously did not have.

“In our eyes, this isn’t going to be just a visitors center. This is truly going to be an official state welcome center,” Ruby said. “This is the first of its kind in West Virginia where the state has actually partnered with the local community to bring people off the interstate, into town, and give them more than a bathroom break.”

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