A Wish List For Wheeling: What Shepherdstown and Winchester Can Teach Us Lee Chottiner September 22, 2015 3 This article is presented via a Weelunk partnership with Dateline:Wheeling. For more great Lee Chottiner stories, poetry, and images that focus on Wheeling, go to DatelineWheeling.com Looking for ways to make Wheeling more livable? I have a suggestion: Get out of town. Not for good, mind you. But taking a few days to travel to other cities—walking around and speaking to the people—is a great way to turbo charge your imagination and bring fresh ideas back to the Friendly City. The trick is to share those ideas once you get home, to actually act upon them. I just had one such experience when my family visited the Eastern Panhandle and some nearby towns. We particularly targeted Shepherdstown, a bucolic place along the Potomac River, and Winchester, Va., a historic town in the Shenandoah Valley. In many ways, both cities are much like Wheeling. All three have rich Civil War histories, beautiful period buildings, local universities, and a core of young people—large or small. They’re also close to major cities: Shepherdstown and Winchester to Washington, Wheeling to Pittsburgh and Cleveland. So why are the downtowns of Shepherdstown and Winchester thriving while Wheeling’s is not? Here are some possible reasons. Together they comprise a wish list of sorts for Wheeling. I hope they generate some discussion at the very least and some action at the very most: • Dog-friendly businesses: My wife, Beth, our daughter, Noa, and I were strolling down German Street, Shepherdstown’s main drag, one afternoon when I decided to slip into the local bookstore, Four Seasons Books. Since we had Guthrie, our pet basset hound with us, Beth offered to hang out on a sidewalk bench with Noa and the dog for a few minutes while I got my bookstore fix. Almost as soon as I walked in, did I dash out and call after Beth and Noa to come in withGuthrie. It turned out that the store was dog friendly. Indeed, most of German Street was. Jan Hafer, director of the Shepherdstown Visitors Center, said the idea grew out of the town’s annual DogFest, which runs from Aug. 15-16. Frankly, she said businesses, including restaurants, balked at first, thinking it was against state law to bring dogs inside their stores. It wasn’t. “We found [after some research] that it’s perfectly fine to have dogs in restaurants as long as they’re not in the food prep area,” Hafer said. Today, she estimates three-quarters of Shepherdstown’s businesses have a paw decal on their shop windows identifying them as dog friendly; many of them also keep water bowls outside for thirsty canines. Paw print decals, much like this one, can be found on the shop windows of Shepherdstown businesses that are dog friendly. What a great idea! It’s a convenience to shoppers to know that virtually an entire business district welcomes their pets. It’s a little thing, but it’s something people remember and a good reason to keep coming back. Can you say, think outside the box? • Easy recycling: Shepherdstown has paired a recycling bin with a trash can on just about every street corner on German Street. It’s a little thing, but downtown Shepherdstown is clean, and those cans are a reason why; you make it easy to recycle, and people will do it. Those recycling bins also send a clear message to visitors: Shepherdstown cares about the way it looks. That resonates with people and makes them want to come back. (I’ve been visiting Shepherdstown for years.) “When you see those recycling bins out front and you see dog waste stations where [people] can bag and dispose of it properly, it raises the awareness of people,” Hafer said. “I can say people are impressed with that; I’ve heard comments. And it keeps our streets cleaner. It’s a common sense thing.” Recycling bins are paired with trash cans all along German Street. • Front page style: Imagine my surprise one day when I picked up the local newspaper, The Shepherdstown Chronicle, to find the lead story—above the fold, below the flag—reporting that eating locally grown food improves nutrition, lessens obesity and sustains the environment. A newspaperman for 30 years, I had frankly bought into the industry mindset that lifestyle stories belong on the inside page, not the front page. But here’s an example of a paper understanding that lifestyle issues have real import. It isn’t all about politics. • Pedestrian malls: Here’s something that requires years of planning by a city’s stakeholders, but when we took a side trip to Winchester, Va., to see an old friend, we were surprised to find a bustling downtown with restaurants, historic sites, museums, and specialty stores. Most of them were on or near a pedestrian walkway. Winchester had closed one of its main downtown arteries, Loudon Street, to traffic. On both ends of the four-block concourse were erected overhead signs welcoming shoppers and diners to “Old Town Winchester.” There were attractions for children, a museum for history buffs, stores for shoppers and few good pubs for beer lovers. On a narrow alley, a half block off Loudon, the city even built an outdoor amphitheater on a vacant lot where a building once stood. Old Town Winchester Old Town Winchester is not an anomaly. On our way home, we stopped in Cumberland, Md., to discover that city had done the same thing in its historic downtown. Now picture Wheeling doing such with its impressive facades on the 1400 block of Market Street, feeding off the energy from West Virginia Independence Hall and West Virginia Northern Community College. It wouldn’t happen over night, but with vision and perseverance by people with clout, it could happen. • Downtown green space: Berkeley Springs, home to America’s first spa, a place where George Washington stopped to take the cure, is built around a city square park. This green space fronts hotels, storefronts, the county courthouse and the spa itself. The park, with a gazebo at its hub, is the center of activity for the town, a destination attraction of sorts. Now that Wheeling has a hole in the middle of its downtown thanks to the razing—rightly or wrongly—of old structures, a green commons might be the best use for that land. It could be a destination site if properly planned, a place that attracts foot traffic, which, in turn, would draw tenants for the empty storefronts surrounding it. • • • As I said at the top, this is just a wish list, something to jog dialogue. I haven’t thought of everything, and I know all too well that each of these ideas comes with its own hurdles to overcome. Nevertheless, the advantages for Wheeling are obvious. I hope you will leave your comments and perhaps add some ideas that you’ve brought home from your own travels. Shepherdstown and Winchester have used their histories and their people as valuable resources. Wheeling can do the same. Photos by the author Share this:Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) 3 Responses Mike Breiding September 22, 2015 The Plan doesn’t contain the word Pedestrian? How did that happen? I did my own search for the words “sidewalk” and crosswalk”. No hits. Is Wheeling already a Pedestrian Utopia where no improvements are needed? Log in to Reply Nobody Thatmatters September 22, 2015 A Comprehensive Plan (or Master Plan as they are called in some states) is by statutory design a very broad vision statement. Intended to provide a loose framework for business, government agencies (beyond the land use planning folks that create them), and residents to develop specific parcels or neighborhoods. The type of suggestions and input in this article are more appropriate for further steps down the road, such as the introduction of redevelopment plans and special purpose improvement districts and such, where corporations and developers pony up along with government to revitalize entire districts. And that takes economic growth and an improving tax base first and foremost, which is why it’s not necessarily surprising to see here in Wheeling. It meets the land use planning definition of a “comprehensive plan.” What it doesn’t do is as “smart” a job as it might have done with that obligatory document. But it is by no means the last word in planning Wheeling’s seemingly bright future. The Highlands and tax revenue as it matures can put the city in a far better position to partner with businesses on development, improvements, and re-development. Wheeling just needs to get smart about growth, and do the hard work that makes it happen. Other cities all over the country that started in far worse shape than this berg have done it to the nines, folks. http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/what-is-smart-growth Log in to Reply Rochambeau September 22, 2015 Lee originally posted this story on Dateline:Wheeling several weeks ago, but I wanted to bring it over to Weelunk for a little experiment. Here was a list of reasonable ideas that a person might expect to be at least under investigation for bringing to Wheeling. So I had the idea to scour the city’s recent Comprehensive Plan to see if Lee’s ideas were in there. Here’s what I found: Dog-Friendliness- nothing. The word “dog” doesn’t even get mentioned. In fairness, this is really up to business owners, not the city government. Recycling- I was pretty surprised that Recycling is never mentioned in the Plan. Nor is Trash, or Litter. Lifestyles on the Front Page- No mention in the Plan, but the top story in the Intelligencer on Monday was “Educators to Parents: Read to Your Children.” Pedestrian Mall- The Plan doesn’t contain the word Pedestrian, nor the word Mall. Downtown Green Space- The map on page 97 doesn’t show any parkland downtown, apart from the waterfront. That same map mentions greenspace projects in North and East Wheeling, though. I didn’t see any other references to parkland expansion. So what does this all mean? My first reaction was that my PDF document search feature must be malfunctioning. So I tried the word Industrial and came up with 8 results. It works. The Comprehensive Plan just doesn’t really address anything on Lee’s wish list. Which is maybe OK, since things can happen even if they’re not in the Plan. However, while working with the document I was pondering the use of “comprehensive” and Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride came to mind: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Log in to Reply Leave a Reply Cancel ReplyYou must be logged in to post a comment.
Mike Breiding September 22, 2015 The Plan doesn’t contain the word Pedestrian? How did that happen? I did my own search for the words “sidewalk” and crosswalk”. No hits. Is Wheeling already a Pedestrian Utopia where no improvements are needed? Log in to Reply
Nobody Thatmatters September 22, 2015 A Comprehensive Plan (or Master Plan as they are called in some states) is by statutory design a very broad vision statement. Intended to provide a loose framework for business, government agencies (beyond the land use planning folks that create them), and residents to develop specific parcels or neighborhoods. The type of suggestions and input in this article are more appropriate for further steps down the road, such as the introduction of redevelopment plans and special purpose improvement districts and such, where corporations and developers pony up along with government to revitalize entire districts. And that takes economic growth and an improving tax base first and foremost, which is why it’s not necessarily surprising to see here in Wheeling. It meets the land use planning definition of a “comprehensive plan.” What it doesn’t do is as “smart” a job as it might have done with that obligatory document. But it is by no means the last word in planning Wheeling’s seemingly bright future. The Highlands and tax revenue as it matures can put the city in a far better position to partner with businesses on development, improvements, and re-development. Wheeling just needs to get smart about growth, and do the hard work that makes it happen. Other cities all over the country that started in far worse shape than this berg have done it to the nines, folks. http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/what-is-smart-growth Log in to Reply
Rochambeau September 22, 2015 Lee originally posted this story on Dateline:Wheeling several weeks ago, but I wanted to bring it over to Weelunk for a little experiment. Here was a list of reasonable ideas that a person might expect to be at least under investigation for bringing to Wheeling. So I had the idea to scour the city’s recent Comprehensive Plan to see if Lee’s ideas were in there. Here’s what I found: Dog-Friendliness- nothing. The word “dog” doesn’t even get mentioned. In fairness, this is really up to business owners, not the city government. Recycling- I was pretty surprised that Recycling is never mentioned in the Plan. Nor is Trash, or Litter. Lifestyles on the Front Page- No mention in the Plan, but the top story in the Intelligencer on Monday was “Educators to Parents: Read to Your Children.” Pedestrian Mall- The Plan doesn’t contain the word Pedestrian, nor the word Mall. Downtown Green Space- The map on page 97 doesn’t show any parkland downtown, apart from the waterfront. That same map mentions greenspace projects in North and East Wheeling, though. I didn’t see any other references to parkland expansion. So what does this all mean? My first reaction was that my PDF document search feature must be malfunctioning. So I tried the word Industrial and came up with 8 results. It works. The Comprehensive Plan just doesn’t really address anything on Lee’s wish list. Which is maybe OK, since things can happen even if they’re not in the Plan. However, while working with the document I was pondering the use of “comprehensive” and Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride came to mind: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Log in to Reply