WHEELING — Officials in the city of Wheeling are eying a considerable pool of money leftover from various Community Development Block Grant projects over the past three years to fund a new improvement project in East Wheeling.

City leaders explained that some previously approved CDBG projects in recent years have either come in under budget or were not completed or undertaken at all for one reason or another. In light of this accumulating pool of federal funds, officials have put forth a proposal to use the money to complete a much-needed street improvement project in the Wheeling Heights/Grandview neighborhood.

“It’s money that was left over, and we want to consolidate that into one project,” Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron explained.

In total, the leftover CDBG money from various projects over the past three years provides a funding pool in excess of $300,000, Herron said. The newly proposed project on the city’s hilltop would be to “mill and fill” 12th Street from Jacob Street in East Wheeling, up the hill toward Grandview — or Wheeling Heights, and then from Grandview Street all the way across the top of the ridge to Stone Boulevard.

“That road is in very bad condition,” Herron said.

CDBG funding is provided to the city from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development each year to help finance projects in the community that benefit low- to moderate-income neighborhoods. This new CDBG project would do just that, Herron explained, noting that it meets all of the federal requirements for usage of these grant dollars.

“It is a low- and moderate-income benefitted project, and this is a great opportunity to consolidate funds that have not been utilized and put them on this project, which we hope to complete sometime in late spring or early summer,” Herron said.

A required public hearing about the “substantial amendments” to the city’s 2021, 2022 and 2025 CDBG allocations was held during the last Wheeling City Council meeting of the year, but no one from the public came forward to speak on the matter during the hearing.