WHEELING — While many of Wheeling’s neighborhoods are still illuminated at night with old-school streetlights, much of the downtown area and now Heritage Port has been converted to new LED lighting.

City officials have discussed the potential conversion to LED lights citywide in the future. According to City Manager Robert Herron, the switch may be inevitable, as AEP has reportedly been struggling to get parts for the old-style, high-pressure sodium lights. Upgrading will likely be expensive, officials noted, but the long-term savings on maintenance and energy efficiency favors the LED lights.

A big section of the downtown area of Wheeling has already been converted in conjunction with the state’s ongoing Downtown Streetscape Project, a $38 million renovation that is expected to be completed later this year.

“We’ve been working on converting the downtown lights from high-pressure sodium lights in the Streetscape area to LED lights,” Herron said. “That’s underway and is almost completed. Also part of that project has been to convert the high-pressure sodium bulb, round lights that were at Heritage Port into LED lights. I’m happy to report that that project is almost completed.”

Herron said the difference made by the lighting upgrade is significant and very noticeable.

“If you get a chance, take a look at Heritage Port at night, and I think you’ll be surprised at the difference that the light going from the high-pressure sodium lights to LED lights has in that area,” he said. “It’s actually absolutely spectacular.”

The city manager thanked representatives of AEP for their efforts on the project, which had been in the works for several months.

“We kind of looked at that last year,” Herron said. “It’s taken some time to get the lights in, and there have been some improvements that needed to be made underground to do that, but that project is nearly completed.”

Last month, both Wheeling City Councilmen Ben Seidler and Tony Assaro requested that AEP complete an inventory of non-functioning streetlights throughout their wards — including Wheeling Island and Warwood — where many have been reported to be out. Officials noted that it is AEP’s responsibility to replace the lights that are out, but the company relies on citizens and the city to identify and to report which ones need to be replaced.

Council members representing neighborhoods where non-functioning streetlights are prevalent indicated that there are many to report, and a lot of those are difficult to access and obtain pole numbers in order to report them.

Herron said he has since met with AEP’s government affairs representative to discuss this issue, among others. Although AEP crews have been busy lately with restoring power in the flood-ravaged areas along National Road in recent weeks, they are expected to perform the streetlight inventory soon.

“They are going to do a nighttime drive-through to identify areas on the Island as a priority, as well as Warwood and East Wheeling,” Herron said. “So they actually are going to visit and go out, ride around and figure out what lights are out. If there are problem areas, like entire blocks — like I know exist on the Island — they’ve got to figure out what’s going on. That will be done within the next couple of weeks.”