The West Virginia Department of Transportation (WVDOT) recently held the groundbreaking ceremony for the nearly $32 million Wheeling Streetscape project. The project is designed to improve the safety of the city’s streets.
Work includes redesigning intersections, widening sidewalks, decorative lighting and traffic signals, ADA-compliant curb cuts, decorative brickwork, separating storm and sanitary sewer, and plants and trees along Main and Market streets in downtown Wheeling between 10th Street and 16th Street.
Work is scheduled to begin the second week of October.
“This has been needed for way too long,” Gov. Jim Justice said at the ceremony. “I could not be more excited to get the ball rolling on this project, which is tremendously important to the City of Wheeling and the entire Northern Panhandle. This is a vibrant, wonderful community that’s important to our state. At the end of the day, I promised that we were going to get this done, and now we’re getting it done.”
WVDOT received a $16.25 million federal RAISE grant for the project. Wheeling contributed $100,000 toward design and engineering and $1.9 million for construction work.
In a June 2020 meeting with WVDOT officials, Justice expressed support for the project.
The project was bid in August.