It was with great interest this week that we learned a potential developer has stepped forward to purchase the McLure House Hotel in downtown Wheeling. Returning the condemned downtown anchor point to functional use is a key to the city’s future.

Josef France, owner of Roadside Properties in Arkansas, appeared Wednesday in Wheeling Municipal Court with the hotel’s current owner, Frances Garey. Garey was summoned to appear after the city of Wheeling and the Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department condemned the McLure’s hotel and apartment rooms in November due to alleged fire code violations along with unsanitary and other unsafe conditions.

Restoring the McLure to some level of its former glory is a key to downtown’s future. The structure and its attached parking garage not only take up considerable space in the 1200 block of Market Street, but the hotel itself has served as a resting stop for nearly a dozen U.S. presidents and even hosted Sen. Joseph McCarthy early in 1950 when he first gave his “Red Scare” speech.

France said he has plans for the hotel. He said the renovation, once begun, would take about a year, after which he would like to reopen the McLure as a branded hotel.

France has extensive development experience. According to a profile in the magazine Arkansas Money & Politics, he has completed projects such as Vista Point at Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and opened Timberlodge Ranch in Amity, Arkansas. He also recently purchased another hotel for renovation.

The future of the McLure is brighter today than it’s been in months. Let’s hope France and Garey can complete the deal and the McLure can once again become an anchor downtown.