Wheeling Waives Business License Fees in Downtown
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WHEELING - Businesses affected by the Wheeling Downtown Streetscape Project will have their business license fees waived for the next two years as construction is expected to impact commerce in the heart of the city through 2024.
Members of Wheeling City Council this week took action on a resolution providing a one-time exemption on the city’s business license fees for affected businesses along Main and Market streets between Ninth and 16th streets, along with cross streets of 10th, 11th, 12th, 14th and 16th streets between Main and Market.
"Due to the ongoing disruption that the Streetscape and numerous other construction projects are causing our downtown businesses, I’ve asked that a resolution be put on city council’s agenda to waive the business license fee in downtown for another two years," Vice Mayor Chad Thalman said. "This is a small gesture and the least we can do to support the many small businesses impacted by downtown construction. While I’m confident a revitalized downtown will benefit everyone, the growing pains associated with this level of investment are not insignificant."
Thalman noted that a similar resolution by city council was first passed in the summer of 2021 to help out some of the businesses in downtown Wheeling that at the time were being impacted by underground utility work by the city in preparation for the state’s long-awaited Downtown Streetscape Project.
"Back in the summer of 2021, it was mostly underground work - sewer and water work - that tore up the streets," Thalman said. "This time around, most of the underground work is complete, but I’ve asked that this item be added to the agenda to extend it for another two years to help out those businesses that are suffering through all of the construction and the inconvenience of the Streetscape project, and the 20 other projects that are taking place in downtown Wheeling."
Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron, who regularly attends construction meetings on the Streetscape project, noted that actually there will be a considerable amount of additional underground work as part of the project. Utility issues, underground vaults and other discoveries have been keeping crews quite busy, officials have noted in recent weeks.
"I just want to warn everybody that there’s a significant amount of underground work yet to be done," Herron told city leaders this week. "It’s not just sidewalks. There are significant issues associated with storm sewers, bump-outs and things of that nature. There’s a lot of underground work yet to be done."
While work is expected to continue on the surface and below the streets and sidewalks in the heart of downtown, city officials said they felt the need to do something to help businesses being impacted by the flurry of work.
"Quite frankly, a lot of our businesses downtown are taking a beating right now with this," Councilman Ben Seidler said. "I know we’ve taken great lengths within the city to take care of the things that were within our control ahead of this project, but I understand there are numerous underground issues that the state folks who are working on this are still experiencing. So I think we need to do everything within our power to help these businesses to stay afloat, and we encourage folks to navigate that downtown, get down there and support these businesses."
Councilman Ty Thorngate commended the vice mayor for bringing the business license fee waiver issue back to the table.
"It was a no-brainer a couple of years ago, and it’s a no-brainer today," Thorngate said. "I’m someone who works for a small business, and through my work, I work with numerous small businesses around town. I try to frequent small businesses downtown, and I can assure you, there are still some small businesses that are struggling to get back from COVID. So we need to do as much as we can do to help them."
Wheeling Finance Director Seth McIntire said the number of businesses affected by the business license fee waiver will be close to the same as those impacted in 2021.
"Our finance director has informed me that the typical business may pay as little as $15 a year in a business license fee, but there are some businesses - typically restaurants or bars - that can pay over $1,000 a year in business license fees," Thalman said. "So waiving these fees for two years, we’re providing a little bit of assistance to these businesses to help offset some inconvenience and loss of revenue they might be experiencing due to all of the construction in downtown Wheeling."
The city collects between $9,000 and $10,000 a year in business license fees from that area, Thalman said. The waiver will allow businesses to keep that money, and the city would forgo collection of around $10,000 in revenue from those fees over the next two years.
City council members unanimously supported the resolution to waive these fees.
Thalman noted that the city’s business license fee should not be confused with the Ohio County Health Department’s yearly permit, which pertinent businesses still need to obtain.
Once the Streetscape project is complete, the city’s main downtown traffic arteries will have new pavement, sidewalks, utilities, storm sewer management systems, curbs, ADA accessible curb cuts and intersections, lighting, landscaping, traffic signals and other features from the comprehensive $32 million-plus downtown update and renovation. The state of West Virginia, which has jurisdiction over W.Va. 2 and is spearheading the Streetscape project, awarded the general contract bid last year to Triton Construction Inc. of St. Albans, W.Va., and construction began late last year.
Most of the work taking place at this time on the Streetscape project has included demolition of portions of sidewalks along the upper portion of Main Street. Tony Clark, West Virginia Division of Highways District 6 engineer, said crews are taking a door-to-door approach to keep affected businesses downtown informed of what phases of work are taking place around them.
"In the plans, there is a requirement that we have to maintain access to all the businesses throughout the project," Clark said on Wednesday, adding that the work crews are moving around to a lot of different areas in the downtown. "It’s tough from a construction standpoint - you have to get a little creative in some areas."
Clark concurred that there was a significant amount of work that still needed to be done below the surface before paving and other improvements could be made at street-level.
"There’s a lot of underground utilities in Wheeling," he said. "When you open it up, you never know what you’re going to find half the time. There’s a myriad of underground utilities we’re working around."
Some sewer separation work - removing old storm sewers from sanitary sewer systems - still needs to be done as part of the state’s end of the project, although the city has already completed a significant amount of sewer separation work and water line replacements in the downtown ahead of the Streetscape project.
After the city performed the bulk of its underground utility work, Main and Market streets were left in a mosaic of bumpy patchwork, as new paving will be forthcoming as part of the state’s project. But the condition of the roads has generated complaints from motorists, and Clark noted that temporary remedies have been discussed.
"We’ve been considering if there is something else we could do to make the surface a little smoother," he said. "We considered milling it now, because it has to be milled in the future anyway."
If the road were to be ground down to a more level surface, however, the existing manholes would cause issues, as would storm water drainage.
"The surface may not hold up through the project," Clark said of the proposal to mill the rough downtown streets. "And we still have a bunch of cutting up to do.
"But when we walk away from this project when it’s finished, we want to leave as perfect of a surface as we can."