THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2008

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Wheeling Reviews Proposed Shopping Center

The Wheeling Village Board on Monday, Aug. 11, saw a concept review for a proposed shopping center for Dundee Road.

"It was for a 40,000 square foot shopping center for the north side of Dundee Road, west of Buffalo Creek," explained Andrew Jennings, village planner. The address, 100 W. Dundee Rd., is between Wolf Road and the Wheeling Police Dept. "It's a vacant piece of land there," he said.

The concept review is the first step in the village's evaluation process, a chance for a developer to get feedback from the board and decide whether to continue. "I think it was positive," Jennings said. "It certainly wasn't, 'Go ahead and move ahead with it as is,'" he added, but said the petitioners stated they were flexible. "It probably will be modified and probably will come back."

One issue faced by Gleason Architects is the land lies in a flood plain. "They had to play with the footprint of the building," he explained. "They're limited in how much buildable area they have." Jennings added the parcel has been vacant for many years.

Another problem is a traffic signal already exists for Wolf Road and the village has asked for another light farther west, preventing a light for the shopping center. There is also a water retention issue resulting from developing in the flood plain.

"They seemed pretty willing to go back and do some market research and see what's most likely to succeed in that location and design around that need," Jennings said. He added he expects the developer to retool the plan or perform more research before returning to the board.

"It's a very important first step," he said. "They had to do a lot of work to get to this point."