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WHEELING — Foreseen geotechnical challenges at the site of the new Market Street Parking Garage and other time-consuming preparation work has been completed, meaning progress on the construction phase of the project is expected to pick up steam in the near future.

Officials from the city of Wheeling, project architects at The Mills Group and general contractor Carl Walker Construction held a construction meeting Wednesday to provide an update on the $12.6 million build at the corner of Market and 11th streets in the heart of the Friendly City’s downtown.

While work at the site has been moving forward for months now, the razing and removal of the former Chase Bank building and site preparation work have been taking place for the most part since the beginning of the year.

“It’s been a slow process, but we expected it and planned around it,” architect Victor Greco said of the geotechnical challenges at the site. “It all just took time. All the deep stuff is done. Rebar and grade beams have been going in, and we’ve finally got some momentum going.”

Greco said crews are expected to begin pouring concrete for the foundation of the six-story parking structure on Friday.

“It will start to blossom soon,” he said. “We’ll start to see columns come out of the ground before too long. A big tower crane will be coming onto the site in September.”

The estimated weight of the parking structure contributed to the challenges for foundation preparation at this site. Additionally, similar geotechnical hurdles for big construction projects were also experienced at neighboring sites in this part of town – simply because of the stability, or instability – of the material that lies underground there, officials indicated.

“The geotechnical makeup of that site was very similar to what they experienced during the construction of the Federal Courthouse,” Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron said. “The Health Plan right across the street also experienced the same thing when it was built.”

Herron said officials on the Market Street Parking Garage construction project worked with the people who navigated through these similar underground issues during the construction of the nearby Federal Building decades ago. There was an “extensive geotechnical investigation” at the site, Herron said, noting that a large crane drill was brought to the property in recent months and various pressure tests and other prep work for the foundation were performed.

“It’s a tight site, and it’s going to be a very heavy building,” Herron said, noting that the Chase Bank building was a big structure – and other buildings existed years ago at the site, as well, but the weight of those structures pales in comparison to the weight that a multi-level parking garage will carry.

“The perimeter of the property has some unknown concrete walls and various components of buildings that were razed years ago,” Greco added, describing what crews found during site preparation.

“It’s so far so good now,” Herron said. “We’re very fortunate to have a very experienced contractor in Carl Walker Construction, our architect in the Mills Group and subcontractor Walter P. Moore.”

Once completed, the Market Street Parking Garage will serve tenants who are expected to reside at the nearby Historic Wheeling-Pitt Lofts, which project developer Coon Restoration and Sealants and building owner Dr. John Johnson of Access Infrastructure are creating inside the former Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Headquarters. Parking in the fully automated garage will also be available to other workers and visitors to this part of the downtown, which is expected to grow commercially once these projects come to fruition.

Herron said construction of the new parking garage is expected to be completed by April 2023.

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