It’s different and there are a million ways it can be explained.
The best way is simply to say it’s not the same because it’s become something else, and in most cases, it depends on the decade of comparison. The common denominator, though, is the fact that there are more vacant lots on Wheeling Island today than anyone alive can remember. Hundreds of homes, former businesses, and apartment buildings have been demolished on the north and south ends since the 1990s, and many large, single-family houses have been separated into apartments.
The Island used to be about family picnics, Little League, riverfront parties, and front porch conversations. There was the Minute Market on one end and A&J’s on the other, and there were schools and churches and kids chasing fireflies on warm summer nights. The bars sponsored the Sunday softball teams, the hounds ran all day on Saturdays, and Friday nights were for football under the lights.
Island folks worked hard and played hard, and they went to church and took care of their homes.
Today’s Wheeling Island, though, is more about business. Sure, there’s a bank, a few restaurants, several stores, a pawn shop, and a casino and racetrack, but there are more rental residential units on both ends than ever before. The demolitions have opened lots, and several of them have been purchased from the city and repurposed into yards or parking areas.
“With every demolition the city does, we ask the property if they want to donate the property to the city, and we have experienced a lot of success on Wheeling Island,” explained Wheeling City Manager Bob Herron. “That success is likely connected to the (federal) Biggert-Waters Act (of 2012) that changed everything about owning a home in the flood plain and needing insurance if you did.
“The law makes it difficult to do anything with property on Wheeling Island, and any new construction would have to be elevated out of the flood plain, and in some areas that’s 13, 14 feet.”
What would it take? For homes – stilted, of course – to be constructed the same as a beach house has to be along the East Coast?
“The very first thing that needs to happen is for the years of population loss to turn around,” Herron said. “We would have to see population growth and to make that happen, a lot of good-paying jobs. But that’s the case in all areas of the city of Wheeling. There’s plenty of room in the city for growth again.
Wheeling Island is a part of Ward 2 and N. Front Street resident Ben Seidler has been the council representative for nearly four years. He’s pushed for an additional police presence, rental inspection programs, neighborhood clean-ups, and community interaction, and he’s mostly been successful with each initiative.
“As far as new construction, there are regulations that have to be considered, but there are a lot of properties that can be re-developed,” he said. “When I moved to Wheeling Island about seven or eight years ago, I bought a beautiful home, and there are so many more available.
“Sure, the Island has changed a lot over the years and there are more rentals than ever before, but it’s still a very special place.”
