TOP STORIES OF 2024: $63 Million Hotel, Event Center Announced for Wheeling Waterfront

Project leader Barry Allen speaks during a May announcement of a $63 million hotel, dining, retail and event center for Wheeling’s waterfront. (File Photo)
WHEELING — Barry Allen took a major step toward developing Wheeling’s waterfront by spearheading creation of a $63 million hotel, dining, retail and event center at the site of the former Wheeling Coffee & Spice Co. and National Equipment Co. buildings.
Allen announced the project in May, hoping the multi-use building will help fuel the city’s revitalization. He noted the “time was right” for business owners to add to city leadership-driven revitalization efforts such as the Downtown Streetscape project.
The project is being led by the development company Vol For Life, founded by Allen and his wife, Lisa Allen, who previously owned The Ziegenfelder Co. with her husband.
The project was formally announced May 21 in front of WesBanco Arena in downtown Wheeling. As he stood in front of the buildings that would be razed to create the hotel, Allen shared his vision for the proposed 100,000-square-foot building.
The project’s architect is the Mills Group. The proposed hotel design includes a restaurant and coffee shop for the building’s first floor. Other floors will feature dedicated retail space, a 2,600-square-foot event center, 122 hotel rooms and eight condominiums, including an almost 3,000-square-foot condominium overlooking the Ohio River.
Allen was joined by city officials at the announcement, including former mayor Glenn Elliott and City Manager Bob Herron. Allen initially approached Elliott regarding what he could do to contribute to the city’s future after he retired in December 2021. Elliott informed him that a hotel was needed for downtown, and the conversation got Allen’s wheels turning about creation of the hotel.
While Allen’s family is providing the seed funding for the project, the city has pitched in as well. To kickstart the project, Herron said, the city has assembled all the property necessary for the project using Tax Increment Financing District economic development funds. The “necessary property” includes five buildings totaling $2,187,000 and was purchased through the Ohio Valley Area Development Corp.
The properties that will make up the hotel site include the space of the main National Equipment Co. building, the smaller National Equipment Co. building on Main Street, the National Equipment Co.’s showroom building on Main Street, the Coffee & Spice building and the small building on the corner lot between 14th and Main streets formerly owned by 404 Partners LLC, a Wheeling-based company owned by T.J. Radevski.
National Equipment was required to move to a new location due to the project and broke ground for its new headquarters in Elm Grove in late November. The food service equipment company’s new 6,700-square-foot building is expected to be completed this summer.
The company’s new location will streamline shopping by condensing products onto one level. The construction of the new headquarters is expected to be completed in the summer of 2025.
Vol for Life aims to cut the ribbon on the new hotel project in April 2026.