photo by: Eric Ayres

Contractor equipment and material for the Downtown Streetscape Project, along with mounds of crushed concrete from the demolition of the former Center Wheeling Parking Garage, occupy the city-owned 19th Street property in East Wheeling. Once environmental monitoring is completed, the city is expected to ready the site and market it for future private development.

WHEELING — East Wheeling is poised to become the next neighborhood in the city to see a major transformation, and one prime piece of city-owned real estate is expected to become available for future development sometime later this year.

City leaders are expected to soon receive word from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection that remediation monitoring has been completed at the 2-acre site where a major demolition of former industrial buildings took place in 2021-22.

Last week, Wheeling City Council approved a resolution approving routine invoices relating to the cleanup and remediation of the 19th Street property. Payments totaling $25,719 were approved for contractor Environmental Standards, and those payments were made with money from grant and loan funds provided through the West Virginia DEP’s Voluntary Remediation Program.

Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron previously explained that one area on the site had what is called DNPL (dense non-aqueous phase liquids) material that dates back to when the site was used for a natural gas and electric facility.

The DNPLs are often creosotes, chlorinated solvents, coal tars and other chemical contaminants, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“Environmental monitoring is ongoing and should be wrapped soon,” Herron said. “Nothing new has been discovered as there has been no migration of the DNPLs.”

Herron said the city should be receiving a “no further action” letter from the DEP this year, opening the door for the city to move forward with marketing the site for future development.

A pair of large buildings along with some smaller satellite structures had remained on the site when the city purchased the property back in 2020. The remaining buildings were once part of an even larger complex at the site that once housed the Hazel-Atlas Glass and Metal factory, the former Penn-Wheeling Closure property and a number of other businesses and industrial operations over the decades.

According to Bel-O-Mar Regional Council, the site used to house the Wheeling Hinge Company, Warren’s Chemical Works, a tannery, the City Gas Works and Electric Light Plant and the Continental Can Company over the years.

The city purchased the property for $150,000 from previous owner Americo Inc. with the intention of cleaning up the site, as the hulking, dilapidated structures were the first thing motorists saw when entering the city’s downtown area from the south. Most considered the abandoned buildings an eyesore in the heart of an area where other neighboring businesses were growing and investing in their properties.

Demolition began in 2021 and the site was totally cleared last year by Reclaim, which conducted the asbestos removal, razed the buildings and removed the mountains of debris from the site for $449,888.

Since then, monitoring of the Brownfield property has been taking place to satisfy the environmental remediation plan. Officials said the 19th street property has had about five or six wells established on the property for monitoring in recent years.

One innovative plan to help with the future marketing of the site was to provide fill material from another project in town and use it to elevate the property above the floodplain, considering its location adjacent to Wheeling Creek. Crews from Reclaim Company LLC of Fairmont, W.Va., which spearheaded the dismantling of the Center Wheeling Parking Garage this past year, deposited slabs of concrete from the parking garage site to the 19th Street property and created the fill material.

Mounds of crushed concrete at the property are expected to be distributed throughout the lot later this year.

“The material to raise the property out of the floodplain is on site,” Herron said. “The Center Wheeling Parking structure dismantling contract called for the material to be hauled to the site, crushed and stockpiled. A separate contract will be let to spread and compact the material. We will bid that contract after we receive the ‘no further action’ letter.”

Nearly 10,000 cubic yards of crushed concrete from the parking garage were to be made available at the site.

While the property has been cleared, it is currently being used by contractors for the West Virginia Department of Transportation for storage of materials needed for the ongoing Downtown Streetscape Project.

The city manager noted that after the state releases the site from further environmental monitoring, the city can move forward with spreading the crushed concrete “once the Streetscape traffic signal contractor is done with the area that they are using as their laydown yard.”

This property development is one of a handful of major ventures unfolding in East Wheeling. The new $9 million Wheeling Fire Department Headquarters is expected to open along 17th Street in the coming months, and the sprawling former Clay School property along 15th Street is expected to be demolished to make room for a new indoor recreation center for the city.