Center Wheeling Parking Garage Dismantling Set
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WHEELING - Demolition debris from the dismantling of the Center Wheeling Parking Garage will be used as concrete-based fill material to raise Wheeling’s remediated 19th Street former industrial property out of the floodplain.
City leaders indicated that this project is expected to serve as a creative and efficient way to "kill two birds with one stone," as the saying goes. The city will save on the cost of hauling away a huge amount of debris from the demolition site by recycling and reusing it nearby. Elevating the surface of the vacant 19th Street land with this material will make the property much more marketable once the site preparation brings it out of the floodplain along Wheeling Creek.
This week, Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron told members of city council that the demolition of the parking structure is set to begin in the coming weeks.
"That project is slated to begin on March 4," Herron said. "As you all know, it is a concrete structure. It does have some steel in it. There’s very little asbestos or environmental remediation that needs to be done. But for the most part, it’s a concrete structure."
In November, Wheeling City Council approved an ordinance authorizing Reclaim Company LLC of Fairmont, in the amount of $1,638,000 for the dismantling of the Center Wheeling Parking Garage using money from the city’s TIF (Tax Increment Financing) Fund.
"Part of that contract is to recycle that concrete into compactable engineering fill," Herron explained. "The game plan on that is to take the material from the parking structure in slabs to the 19th Street industrial site in the areas that are outside the floodplain."
The city purchased the 19th Street property in 2020 with the intention of cleaning up the hulking and deteriorating industrial buildings on the site which once housed the Hazel-Atlas glass factory and a number of other businesses and industrial operations over the decades. Reclaim Company also was awarded the bid for that demolition for $449,888.
Buildings were razed and removed in 2021-22, and since then, the former industrial site has been in an environmental monitoring period. The city was able to perform that demolition as a brownfield cleanup and was successful in securing financial assistance. A grant and revolving loan funds through the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection's Voluntary Remediation Program were used to help address any issues with hazardous material at the former industrial site.
This week, Herron said the monitoring process is nearly complete - which will give the city the green light to market the property to potential developers. He noted that the process of elevating the property out of the floodplain can coincide with the continued monitoring period.
According to the city manager, the city’s contractor that demolished the former Chase Bank building on Market Street downtown used a grinding machine on the demolition debris at that site - where the new Market Street Parking Garage is now nearing completion. A grinding machine will be used on slabs of concrete hauled from the Center Wheeling Parking Garage to the 19th Street site in a similar process.
The 19th Street site owned by the city of Wheeling once housed large industrial buildings and is currently undergoing environmental monitoring. The city plans to market the property to potential developers once the monitoring is complete and demolition debris is used to elevate the land out of the floodplain extending from the nearby Wheeling Creek. (File Photo by Eric Ayres)
"The material will be ground up for recycling and stockpiled at that site," Herron said. "The material will then be able to be used on the site."
Herron said the dismantled parking structure should produce about 10,000 to 12,000 cubic yards of ground concrete. The project to elevate the site with the fill is expected to require about 9,000 to 10,000 cubic yards. The city manager noted that the city’s ordinance regarding floodplain elevations is actually two feet higher than regulations imposed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The 19th Street project will abide by the city’s extra two-feet guidelines. Herron explained that there are different required elevations on the site, depending on a particular area’s proximity to Wheeling Creek.
Herron said a displacement study has been done as is required by FEMA as it relates to any fill that is planned for the property.
"It will not have an adverse effect on adjacent properties or the floodplain as a whole," Herron noted.
There is expected to be some leftover material that will not be used at the 19th Street site, but Herron said there is value in the ground concrete.
"We’ll have probably about 2,000 cubic yards of left, which is very valuable material, to be sold," he said. "So that project is coming together. When it’s done, the site will be ready for development and will be completely out of the floodplain. It’s estimated that this project or this process will save about $750,000 of development costs associated with the 19th Street property. So I’m very pleased that that’s coming together nicely."
Once the fill material is stockpiled at the 19th Street site, the city will have to put the second phase of the project out to bid so the winning contractor can take over the task of spreading and compacting the material as needed for the floodplain elevation.
Herron said the walking bridge that connects the Center Wheeling Parking Garage and the former Ohio Valley Medical Center complex is part of the city’s demolition contract and will be among the first things addressed during the dismantling of the parking structure.
"They’re going to cut the bridge up and take it out with a crane," Herron said. "Chapline Street will be closed in that area during a portion of the demolition."
The city manager noted that the major demolition of the rest of the buildings on the former OVMC is ongoing, and workflow dynamics are being coordinated between demolition contractors for the hospital and for the city’s adjacent parking garage.
WVU Medicine is spearheading the demolition at the former OVMC site, where a regional cancer treatment center is expected to be built.
Herron said the neighboring work on the hospital campus is subject to change, but as of now, the West Tower of the OVMC campus is slated to be the last building removed.
Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron, right, addresses members of Wheeling City Council this week as Councilman Jerry Sklavounakis, left, looks on. (Photo by Eric Ayres)
With the demolition of the parking structure set to begin during the first week of March, the current Wheeling Fire Department is in the process of relocating to temporary sites until its new $9 million headquarters is ready for occupancy. The new Wheeling Fire Department Headquarters is currently under construction in East Wheeling. Construction had been delayed in the fall because of payment issues between the general contractor and subcontractor, but work has once again been proceeding at an efficient pace in recent weeks.
The current Wheeling Fire Department Headquarters is located in the lower lever of the Center Wheeling Parking Garage. Other stations in the city will have to serve as a temporary home until the new state-of-the-art facility is completed.
"We’re going to relocate the apparatus in two different stations, which will still provide us the coverage we’ll need for the neighborhoods." Wheeling Fire Chief Jim Blazier said this week, noting that several offices are located in the current facility, as is the shift commander and a couple of large firefighting vehicles.
"The shift commander and Engine 2 are going to move to North Wheeling, and the ladder truck (Ladder 1) is going to move to the Island temporarily," Blazier said. "Once the new headquarters is open, then it will all go back to the headquarters location."
Blazier said the offices and personnel located in the current headquarters are being temporarily relocated to the former Wheeling Police Department site in the City-County Building. The police department outgrew that space many years ago, and last year, the new Wheeling Police Headquarters was opened in Center Wheeling ... in a retrofitted building on the former OVMC campus, right next to the Center Wheeling Parking Garage.