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For a long time, it was disappointing, if not depressing, to make the turn from Wheeling Tunnel onto Main Street in downtown Wheeling.
One of the first things a motorist used to see is the old Wheeling Inn, a decrepit building that continued to deteriorate with each day. It made people's first view of downtown Wheeling look old, tired and run down, not the image a city wants to portray when it's trying to attract people.
This past week, shovels dug into dirt to ceremonially begin the revitalization of that space with the construction of the Wheeling Gateway Center, a new visitors center and heritage space that Wheeling Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director Frank O'Brien called "the front entrance that Wheeling deserves."
The new 23,173-square-foot center will give downtown Wheeling its best view of the historic Wheeling Suspension Bridge in decades. For so long, it had been obscured by the Wheeling Inn, but the new center will accentuate not only its beauty, but the beauty of the Ohio River.
When completed, it will not just house a visitors center, but also the Wheeling CVB offices, a restaurant and bar and a new visitors and heritage prototype.
It will be a place that will draw people in, then motivate them to fan out into the city to experience what it has to offer in terms of shopping, restaurants and entertainment.
"That's how tourism works when it's done well," O'Brien said. "Visitors will arrive, they'll learn, they'll explore, they'll experience, they'll spend, and they'll return. Arrive, learn, explore, experience, spend and return is not just a slogan. It's the heartbeat of this project."
Wheeling is a thriving community that wants to grow. A beat-up old hotel was the last image Wheeling's downtown needed to show that. This new Wheeling Gateway Center will promote all the wonderful things the Friendly City offers. And it will do so beautifully, both with how it operates and how it looks.