Trending
WHEELING - The Wheeling-Ohio County Convention and Visitors Bureau will break ground on the new Wheeling Gateway Center downtown on Oct. 27.
Olivia Litman, marketing director for the CVB, announced the date while addressing the Wheeling Rotary Tuesday at WesBanco Arena.
She reported the foundation for the future facility on Main Street along the Ohio River is already being dug out of the hillside and can be seen while driving Interstate 70 east coming into Wheeling.
"We have to move it (the ceremony) to Main Street, because there is going to be a big hole where the building is going to sit," Litman explained. "You may also have noticed a cable from the Suspension Bridge goes directly into that hillside. That is causing a little bit of an issue.”
This is "the most vulnerable time for construction there has ever been," she continued. Not only is the Gateway project happening, but other projects are in the works. a major hotel in downtown Wheeling near WesBanco Arena, and the construction of the WVU Medicine Cancer Center on the site of the former Ohio Valley Medical Center has already begun.
"It's an honor and a thrill each day to wake up each morning and think how Wheeling and Ohio County are a great destination," Litman said. "That's what I do. That is what a CVB is."
While the area doesn't have a convention center, it is the CVB's job to market local events and attract visitors from outside the region to the area, she explained.
"We want people to know Wheeling is a great destination. We want them to come and stay in Ohio County, because that is how we are funded - by the hotel and bed tax,” Litman continued. "That is the only way we are funded.
"Unless you are staying in a hotel every day, it is not your tax dollars being used."
She described the CVB as a "pseudo-government" agency that is permitted to use taxpayer money for such things as buying property like the Capitol Theatre in Wheeling.
"I feel the Capitol Theatre being purchased (by the CVB) was a catalyst for the downtown," Litmann said. "People are really starting to think that downtown is a viable place to come again. Before the CVB bought the Capitol, it was dark."
The motorcoach business that once brought many visitors to the former Capitol Music Hall is "long gone," and it can no longer be looked at as the only way to get destination business and tourism to Wheeling, she continued.
"It still happens here every day, but you're not going to see them (buses) lined up on Main Street," Litman said. "Thank goddess, because where would you go? Parking is an issue for many, anyway.”
"That was the start of how we came to dabble in economic development - when we changed from a destination marketing organization to a destination management organization. That's where we are today."
The CVB no longer stages events, but rather provides marketing for those who do. Events aren't advertised locally by the CVB, but outside the region in places as far away as New York and Virginia.
The Northern Panhandle has to be more creative in attracting visitors as "we don't have a beach," Litman explained.
"We work with the Division of Tourism and the state of West Virginia. But when it comes down to the 'wild and wonderful,' we are going to be the wonderful part every single time," she said. "We are a way more urban destination.
"People cannot whitewater raft here. But I can tell where an hour from here you can," Litman added.