Clay School inches closer to demolition
The Wheeling City Council’s Health and Recreation Committee voted Tuesday to recommend the demolition of the Clay School. This issue will go before the full council at their next meeting.
WHEELING – The Wheeling City Council Health and Recreation Committee voted Tuesday to recommend the demolition of the Clay School. This action inches the building closer to its inevitable demise, providing a conclusion to a years-long battle and freeing the space for new development.
The three member committee, Chair Connie Cain, Councilor Tony Assaro, and Councilor Ty Thorngate, is a standing committee founded by the city’s charter. Its official spheres of influence include the Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department, animal control, the city’s Recreation Department, playgrounds, marinas, and parks.
City Manager Robert Herron, delivering a report on the Clay School, stated that a walk through of the site would occur in the next week to establish a timeline for environmental remediation of the site prior to its demolition. The U.S. The Environmental Protection Agency has awarded the city $500,000 for the abatement.

The building’s demolition will be funded by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s Dilapidated Properties Program, or DLAP. That program advised the city that work on another DLAP-funded demolition, the Gateway Project, would need to conclude before funds are disbursed.
The city does not have funds set aside for the engineering of any new structure, but Herron advised the city would seek funding through congressional spending, grants, and private organizations. Abatement and demolition could take “at least a year” according to Herron.
Located at the corner of Wood Street and 15th Street in the city’s East Wheeling neighborhood, the Clay School previously served as an elementary and junior high school. Half a block wide and four stories tall, the imposing building now sits with shattered and boarded-up windows.
Since 1996, after the Ohio County Board of Education approved its closure the year prior, the building has sat vacant. Passing between owners for decades, the city of Wheeling took ownership of the property in 2021 at no cost, sparking a years-long debate about its future.
The Wheeling City Council, committed to clearing blighted properties throughout the city, has long expressed its concerns over the former school. Former Mayor Glenn Elliott, speaking to The Intelligencer in 2021, said conversations with developers, owners, and the city did not materialize in a redevelopment plan. “We just couldn’t make the numbers work in a way that made sense for the city,” Elliott said of the school. “It’s a tough building to save.”
In 2023, the council approved a redevelopment study to gauge potential options for reuse of the site. Tipping Point Development of Canfield, Ohio, was awarded the consulting contract. In the summer of 2024, conclusions of that study showed a 50/50 split in the community regarding demolition or redevelopment. Plans to redevelop the property saw price tags as high as $24 million, while demolition and reconstruction saw a scale of costs from $13 million to $24 million.
During a December Finance Committee meeting, members of the city council unanimously agreed that demolition was the way forward. “I would like to save it,” Thorngate said, “but the only thing that makes sense for [the city] is demolition.”
While discussion occurred on what to put in the school’s place, including the relocation of community gym Nelson Jordan Center to the site, no decision has been made.
Cain agreed, but expressed her concerns with community input on the Clay School and other area-projects. “I feel that it should be torn down,” Cain said, “but our community objects to anything [in the new building] connected to that field.”
The field the Third Ward councilor objected to is the J.B. Chambers Recreation Park. Sat across the street from the Clay School, the sports field was constructed over ten years ago when the city acquired and demolished an entire residential block for its creation.
City leaders at the time assured residents that they would be able to use the field during its off-season, but East Wheeling residents allege they have been locked out.
Vice Mayor Jerry Sklavounakis assured Cain that the building would be open to the public. “No one wants to lock East Wheeling out of the building,” Sklavounakis said. Mayor Denny Magruder agreed, saying it was “time to sit down and negotiate” the space’s use.
Despite no official decision made on the Clay School, Tipping Point published a press release on Jan. 13 claiming the city planned to build a “new multi-purpose recreation center” that will “serve seniors and children while integrating community spaces like J.B. Chambers Memorial Recreation Park and the Nelson Jordan Center.”
Herron, during the Jan. 21 meeting, presented concepts for a potential recreation building at the site, but stated the decision on how to move forward would ultimately fall on council.
The city council will likely consider approving the school’s demolition at its Feb. 4 meeting.