They’ve stared at it. People have stood on a sidewalk near the heart of downtown Wheeling, and they have stared at the top level of the McLure Hotel.
But they have never seen as much as a light on because, for the past 37 years, the top floor of the McLure has rested without much activity, and that is because the eighth level was made into a dumping ground for broken furniture and appliances by a few sets of previous owners.
It was created when, in the early 1980s, Benny Battistelli had purchased the hotel and decided to remove the historic façade and add a new lobby as well as restaurant and bar areas. For many years, the McLure Hotel staff worked with representatives with Jamboree USA and Oglebay’s Festival of Lights to fill the building’s 173 rooms with motorcoach guests.
And it worked for several years, according to Cindy Johnson, a former general manager of the McLure until taking a hospitality position with the Greater Wheeling Sports and Entertainment Board three years ago.
“When I first started there, it seemed there was always a motorcoach out in front of the hotel, and not just during the peak times for the Festival of Lights,” Johnson recalled. “Of course, we tried to continue attracting the busses, but they gradually chose other hotels for a variety of reasons.”
And then Jamboree USA vanished in the early 2000s, and the number of tour busses visiting Oglebay’s annual light show diminished thanks to copycatters in the Pittsburgh and Columbus areas. Johnson, though, believes a rooftop supper club would have allowed her and her staff to still maintain a profitable occupancy percentage at the 173-room hotel.
“During my years as the general manager of the McLure Hotel, I was always told that Benny Battistelli wanted to make the top floor a supper club with the best views of downtown Wheeling,” Johnson said. “I know the blueprints are in the building, too, because I looked at them before and the man had a terrific vision of how he thought it should be.
“From what I have heard, though, is that the construction up there just suddenly stopped one day,” she recalled. “I’m not sure why. Maybe that’s when he ran out of money after the massive renovation and addition projects he paid for in the early 1980s. But if we would have had that restaurant up there, I believe it would have made a huge difference in our business.”
Opening a rooftop lounge, though, is a part of Roxby Development’s plan, and that has Johnson and many others excited for the future of the McLure Hotel.
“As far as I know, no one has said a word about that top level for a long time because the owners that followed Battistelli ended up using it for storage,” Johnson said. “More recently I have heard a lot of positive things, and from the conversations I have had with local residents, I can tell they are very curious to see what Roxby will be doing with the top level. I know it’s been mentioned in all the media reports, so people are really hoping to be able to see it someday soon.
“But with the painting that’s been taking place, and all of the construction trucks that have been parked in the area, people are really excited to see the McLure getting new life,” she continued. “I know I can’t wait to go into the hotel and see all of the changes and upgrades that are being done, and I know a lot of others feel the same way.”
A Blank Canvas
Roxby Development purchased the downtown hotel for $6.245 million and plans to renovate each of the seven floors during the next two years. A new bar and restaurant will be established, as well, and the conversation for the rooftop level has begun.
But what is possible? What business plan would prove profitable? What kind of venue would it have to become to attract out-of-towners and local consumers? Those questions are pieces of the puzzle General Manager Taylor Smith is figuring right now.
Smith, a 15-year veteran of the hospitality industry, has gained a plethora of ideas during his travels to several cities in the United States.
“I think if you look at similar establishments in cities like Atlanta, New York, and Chicago, music plays a big part with top levels like what we have here at the McLure Hotel,” he explained. “In fact, we did a poll on Instagram to see what people really want to see on our top level, and one of the big things we keep hearing is the music. People really want us to have music up there, and we have even heard that it should be a piano bar where we bring in professionals to play and also allow our guests to play, too.
“And I have this idea of having swings for the seats at the bar,” Smith revealed. “As kids we had swings at the playground, but now that we are adults going to adult playgrounds, the swing sets just may be something people enjoy. They can swing into their drinks, and that can swing to the music.”
According to Taylor, a supper club is not part of the project, but small plates and beverages likely will be included.
“We have been thinking about what menu items we could have up there, and so far the most popular idea involves small-plate appetizers and an assortment of drinks,” Smith explained. “Final decisions haven’t been made, but those are some of the discussions that have taken place.
“There is an area of the eighth floor where the kitchen was supposed to go but that area has been used for storage, too, by the previous owners,” he said. “The same goes for the restrooms that were completed for the supper club, but I guess the previous owners had no plans to ever use them, so they just filled them up with old hotel items like chairs and tables.”
Trend Setters?
The McLure’s eighth floor is referred to as the ninth on the renovation and addition blueprints because of how Battistelli designed the hotel when the renovations took place, and there are two areas where carpenters began framing the areas for the bar and wet bar areas.
The architect, MKC Associates from Philadelphia, Pa., only cited “supper club” on the blueprint for the ninth level, and the company also included the words, “Interior Finishes (By Owner).”
Obviously, it did not happen … yet.
“A lot of things that Jeff Morris Sr. has said to me have stuck with me, and one of those things is that we think in the past, we think in the present, and we think in the future, so when it comes to the top level of the hotel, we are thinking in the near future,” Smith said. “Of course, it’s not going to happen overnight, but I believe it will be completed hopefully in a year or so.
“When it is completed, I believe it’s going to be a very popular venue for us because of how unique it will be. There’s nothing else like it in the city, so I feel it will be yet another reason for people who live in the Pittsburgh and Columbus areas to come to Wheeling and visit with us,” the general manager added. “It may even start a trend in the Wheeling area because of how much people are going to love it. I would love for Wheeling to become the city of rooftop lounges.”
