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A clearer view around downtown Wheeling's Heritage Port is thankfully in the cards. Work recently began to clear trees, brush and overgrowth from around the port.
"The work will continue -- weather permitting -- for several days, possibly a couple of weeks," Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron said.
That's great to hear, as the aesthetic quality of Heritage Port should be one of the top priorities for the City of Wheeling. That area is home almost every major festival in Wheeling -- the Upper Ohio Valley Italian Heritage Festival, Heritage Blues Fest and the City of Wheeling's Independence Day fireworks among them. Even when Heritage Port is quiet, it provides people in the region a nice place to sit, relax and take in a beautiful view of the Ohio River and the Wheeling Suspension Bridge.
To have that view obscured by overgrowth and trees is counterproductive to Wheeling's tourism success. Sure, there are few other places in the Ohio Valley that could handle events of that magnitude, but the last thing the city wants to do is motivate those event organizers to look elsewhere.
Hopefully, this project is the start of a renewed effort to keep Heritage Port looking good as one of Wheeling's jewels.