Photo by Eric Ayres Milling along portions of 16th, Chapline and Eoff streets on the southeastern end of downtown Wheeling took place this past week in preparation of the final street resurfacing work as part of the Downtown Streetscape Project.

WHEELING – State officials with the West Virginia Department of Transportation are hopeful that the Wheeling Downtown Streetscape Project – with the exception of some minor tweaks and work to tie up some loose ends – should be completed next month.

After nearly four years in the construction phase and more than a decade of planning, the transformative facelift in downtown Wheeling promises to come to a conclusion in the coming weeks.

Brian Kusich, WVDOT District 6 engineer, said milling of street surfaces began this past week along 16th, Chapline and Eoff streets in the southeastern part of downtown in preparation for resurfacing of the remaining portions of the Streetscape area. This work will likely take crews into the end of May. By that time, only a few remaining tasks on the massive project should be left to address.

Kusich noted that Mother Nature will obviously play a role in how quickly work crews will be able to continue moving forward with the final stages of progress on the job.

“This work (milling and paving) will take approximately two weeks, depending on the weather,” Kusich said. “After the paving is complete, the contractor will have an area on Chapline Street that requires planters and sidewalk pouring, which should take a couple of weeks.”

Completion dates for the Wheeling Downtown Streetscape Project have been pushed back several times over the past couple of years. The original completion date targeted for the project was November 2024. However, various delays caused the construction phase to extend for many months longer.

Last year, it was hoped that the project would conclude by year’s end, but the section on the perimeter of the Streetscape area on the southeastern section of downtown remained to be addressed. Crews from Triton Construction of St. Albans, W.Va., the state’s general contractor for the project, have been working this year to put the final touches on sidewalks, curbs, crosswalks, landscape planters or bioswales with stormwater management features and other improvements related to the Streetscape work.

The initial concepts for the project that were launched more than 10 years ago eyed downtown improvements on a much smaller scale. Preliminary cost estimates then totaled around $3.8 million. By the time plans were approved and funding was put in place years later, the project had grown considerably to include sewer separations, new traffic signalization and other improvements to the heart of the city.

Nearly four years ago, Triton secured the general contract for the Streetscape project with a winning bid of around $31.9 million. Construction began in October 2022.

Since then, the cost of the project has risen to almost $38.3 million, according to the latest figures listed by the WVDOT.

Two years ago on May 14, 2024, work along Main Street as part of the project was deemed substantially completed. Crews then focused much of their efforts on Market Street, which was finished last year.

According to the Streetscape plans, the sprawling project has included installation of more than 41,000 square yards of finishing asphalt, 7,000 linear feet of curbs, 2,414 square yards of brick banding, 10,372 individual flower bulbs for landscaping, 315 new trees of various types and 1,115 different types of shrubs.

“Hopefully the project will be complete around mid-June, but the contractor will have some punch list work afterward,” Kusich said.

This past week, the West Virginia Division of Highways announced that there will be alternating lane closures on 16th, Chapline and Eoff streets in affected sections of downtown Wheeling from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. through the end of this month. Flaggers will maintain traffic, and motorists are encouraged to use an alternate route or slow down and expect delays in the impacted area.

Alternative routes are 14th Street, Market Street and 20th Street, officials noted, adding that inclement weather or unforeseen circumstances may change the project schedule.