WHEELING — A contract has been signed and plans are in motion for the long-looming replacement of the Washington Avenue Bridge in Wheeling — a state project that is expected to see a busy thoroughfare in the city closed to all traffic for one year beginning in October.

The project was put out to bid this year by the West Virginia Department of Transportation, and the contract was awarded earlier this summer. City officials last week attended the first pre-construction meeting on the major project, according to Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron.

“The city was invited to attend the pre-construction meeting, and we’re appreciative of that,” Herron said.

Contractor Charles J. Merlo Inc. of Mineral Point, Pa., was awarded the $5,342,000 contract for the complete bridge replacement.

“The contractor that was awarded this bid is the same contractor that did the Market Street Bridge,” Herron noted. “They did an excellent job on the Market Street Bridge, and we’re confident that their work on the Washington Avenue Bridge will go just as smoothly.”

No official start date has been announced for the work, but the project is expected to begin sometime in October of this year and be completed by October of 2026, according to City Manager Robert Herron.

Some loose ends need to be wrapped up before the bridge over Wheeling Creek is removed and replaced.

City crews are expected to perform utility work around the site in the coming months, and work on the ongoing Valley View Sewer project is expected to be finished in the area near the bridge, as well.

“The city will need to relocate a water line in that area sometime between now and October,” Herron said. “A couple of right-of-way issues will also need to be resolved before the project can begin.”

Herron indicated that the state contract also has provisions that address certain environmental issues and endangered species regulations related to concerns about habitats of bats in the trees and mussels in the creeks. Hence, any removal of vegetation related to the project is not expected to take place until after Nov. 15.

Over the past several years, the Washington Avenue Bridge has remained structurally sound and able to maintain vehicular traffic, but it has received poor ratings during inspections. This ultimately led to its load limit to be reduced to only 5 tons.

“We don’t run fire trucks over the bridge with the 5-ton weight limit,” Herron explained. “School buses can’t cross it.”

While the busy traffic artery is a key access between National Road and WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital, its year-long closure is expected to affect the smaller vehicles that are currently within the restricted weight limits.

Once the bridge is repaired, however, the new bridge will be able to handle larger, heavier vehicles traveling through this stretch of Washington Avenue again for the first time in many years.

The bridge was temporarily closed three years ago while repairs were made to the structure in order to keep it open until plans were solidified to get it replaced.

Officials noted that the Washington Avenue Bridge has a unique design – a floating cantilever bridge – which is not favorable by today’s standards and tends to be problematic in terms of maintenance issues. The new bridge is slated to be a concrete structure.

Two different options had originally been explored for the method of replacing the bridge. One option maintained one lane of traffic during construction and another option was to completely close the bridge while it was being replaced. Early estimates showed that the option of maintaining traffic would be much more expensive, officials noted.