Historic Landmarks Commission OKs Waterfront Demolition

Photo by Eric Ayres

WHEELING -- Members of the Wheeling Historic Landmarks Commission on Thursday agreed to recommend approval of a request to demolish several structures within the city's Downtown Historic District to clear the way for the proposed $58.7 million JC Lando waterfront development and hotel complex.

Historic Landmarks Commission member Betsy Sweeny was not in attendance at the meeting, nor was fellow member and Wheeling City Council representative Tony Assaro, who was attending the West Virginia Municipal League Conference in Charleston. Although members expressed concerns about the proposed demolition of historic structures, those present unanimously voted in favor of recommending approval.

The matter is expected to be forwarded to Wheeling City Council for final approval.

The city is the entity behind the effort to demolish the structures along the block of 14th Street between Water and Main streets for the project. To help facilitate the private investment, the city acquired the buildings at 1, 9, 13 and 15 14th St., along with 1319 and 1323 Main St., and transferred ownership to the Ohio Valley ADC, which often handles property matters related to economic development ventures.

As required by law, a hearing before the Historic Landmarks Commission must be held before buildings within the historic district -- including some considered contributing structures -- can be demolished.

There has been public opposition to demolishing the buildings, some of which date back to before the Civil War. Columns outside the former Paramount Coffee and Wheeling Coffee & Spice buildings feature embossed footings that read "Wheeling, Virginia" with the year 1858.

Representatives from the city -- Building and Planning Director Brenda J. Delbert and City Solicitor Rosemary Humway-Warmuth -- spoke during the hearing on behalf of the city and the applicants seeking approval for the demolition.

"It's essentially the block across the street from WesBanco Arena," Delbert said, noting that the city has already put the demolition project out for bid and opened bids. "Demolition is expected to be complete by the end of this year."

Delbert said Reclaim was the low bidder on the demolition project with a bid of $628,290. The bid and other contractor proposals were included in the information provided to the commission.

"This project has been fully vetted," Delbert said, noting that the funding package for the project had been completed, as announced during a recent gathering of dignitaries that included West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey. "It was announced last week that it was fully funded."

The project is being spearheaded by Barry Allen and his wife, Lisa, who formerly led Ziegenfelder Company. Construction is expected to begin after permitting is approved and should take 18-24 months to complete.

The JC Lando waterfront complex is designed to include a restaurant, rooftop bar, retail space, event center, residential units and a new 122-room hotel.

"It will be a multi-use facility," Delbert said, noting that items from the historic structures are expected to be salvaged. "The columns will be removed and stored out at City Operations in Clator, as well as the cornerstone piece and all of the external light fixtures."

Although pieces of Wheeling's history are expected to be preserved, officials said the salvaged items will not be incorporated into the design of the new building, which will be entirely new construction.

"If there is some interest in anything else that can safely be salvaged, as part of the agreement with Reclaim, that we can store and be utilized by another historic group within the city, they would be more than willing to do that," Humway-Warmuth said, adding there is nothing remaining inside the former coffee shop.

Jeanne Finstein of Friends of Wheeling spoke during the hearing and said she was pleased that some features, including the columns, are expected to be saved. She added that local preservation groups would be interested in salvaging other pieces from the historic buildings, including wood, hinges, hardware and old windows.

"If there would be some actual, formal way for a preservationist to come look before the wrecking ball is there, that would be great," Finstein said.

Jon Smith, who serves on the board of directors for the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia, said he is a friend of Michael Mills of the Mills Group, which designed the project. Smith said Mills has always been interested in architectural salvage and supports efforts to preserve pieces of Wheeling's history.

Jay Frey of Wheeling also spoke during the hearing.

"I think this is a tremendously exciting project that is fulfilling a need that we've had here in Wheeling for quite some time that has been unmet," Frey said, noting that renderings of the proposed complex show facades of the old warehouse and coffee shop along 14th Street incorporated into the design.

"I'm still puzzled," Frey said. "I think it would behoove the project managers to share with the community what the due diligence -- which I'm sure they did -- process was to determine that structurally the facade could not be incorporated into the design of the building."

Frey said incorporating the facade could allow the project to receive a 45% historic tax credit against the cost of integrating it into the structure.

"That's just a fact," he said. "Why forgo that? What happened between then and now that made it impossible to do that to the point we're taking down an 1851 building within a historic neighborhood?"

Humway-Warmuth said due diligence was performed to determine whether the facades could be saved but said doing so would have been cost prohibitive.

"Mr. Herron has addressed that," she said. "The initial idea was to try to save the facade on the coffee shop building. He worked with the Mills Group, and it was going to take millions and millions of dollars to do that. Because of the age of the building, it was going to be incredibly difficult and expensive. So the design of the hotel will pay tribute to those storefronts after a lot of work went into trying to save those facades."

Members of the Historic Landmarks Commission said their questions had been answered by the applicants and that the only recommendation before them was whether to approve the demolition permit.

Historic Landmarks Commission member Ken Sexton questioned how many historic buildings could be removed before downtown Wheeling loses its designation as a historic district. Delbert said she believed the district would undergo a boundary adjustment before losing its historic designation.

"Everything is rolling forward on this," Humway-Warmuth said. "The project is a definite go-ahead.

"Nothing is going to stop it."

Following the guidelines of the commission's review, Historic Landmarks Commission member Jon-Erik Gilot said he did not see a reason to deny the demolition recommendation, although he acknowledged the difficulty of seeing historic structures removed.

"I've been working in the field of public history and historic preservation for over 20 years now," Gilot said. "It hurts to see pre-statehood buildings go in this town, because they are a finite resource. To see buildings that were here when Wheeling was the state capital -- to see those come down, I don't like it."