Wood County Parks Director Jeremy Cross and Greater Parkersburg Convention and Visitors Bureau President and CEO Mark Lewis spoke before the Wood County Commission on Thursday about tourism in the area and things happening at Mountwood Park. (Photo by Brett Dunlap)

PARKERSBURG — Creating opportunities to bring tourism to the area with new projects around Wood County is a focus for local tourism officials.

Wood County Parks Director Jeremy Cross and Greater Parkersburg Convention and Visitors Bureau President and CEO Mark Lewis spoke before the Wood County Commission on Thursday about tourism in the area and things happening at Mountwood Park.

Lewis talked about participating in Tourism Day at the state Capitol earlier this week where he interacted with many local lawmakers and connected them with representatives from the Mountain Trails Network of which Mountwood Park, near Parkersburg, will have a major part to discuss possible funding avenues and grant opportunities to improve trails and more.

The paved Parkersburg Ohio River Trail reaches from Point Park to before the Grand Central Mall in Vienna. Lewis said plans are being worked on that would eventually have the trail reach all the way to the mall. Currently, it is over 2,200 feet from reaching the back parking lot at the mall.

The biggest obstacle is having to put an 80-foot long bridge over Pond Run which some estimates have it costing around $500,000, Lewis said adding it would be similar to another bridge constructed along the trail that took a number of years to finalize and get built.

“It would be really nice to connect it up with the mall,” he said. “At that point, it not only becomes a recreational trail, but a commuter trail where people can park at the mall and ride (a bike) to work in downtown Parkersburg or vice-versa.”

They are also looking at ways to bring the North Bend Rail Trail all the way into downtown Parkersburg.

“Closing that gap is on our long-term radar all the time,” Lewis said.

There are things that have to be worked out with CSX Railroad and more on both projects, officials said.

Mountwood Park is looking at the possibility of re-configuring its ATV trails to accommodate jeeps, full-sized trucks and vehicles for people looking to do overlanding adventures where vehicles go off-road on specified trails with obstacles to maneuver through.

“The two main things to switchover is the trails have to be one way so you don’t have any full-sized vehicles meeting and everything has to be wide enough to accommodate a jeep,” Cross said, adding some vehicle tires stick out more on some vehicles than others and those would have to be accounted for.

There are people who travel from area to area doing these kinds of adventures and it is something that could bring more people to the park, he added.

Representatives from West Virginia Overland recently met with the Wood County Parks and Recreation Commission about what could be done locally to develop this idea to increase tourism.

“They are a good group and fairly low impact,” Cross said. “You would think that a bigger vehicle and bigger tires would tear things up more, but the average speed on these vehicles is 8 mph.

“They don’t like to tear up their vehicles because they have to drive back home and drive to work on Monday.”

Some of the park’s trails already meet some of the requirements for these vehicles as the trails were once logging roads, Cross said, adding they need to work with someone to determine what kind of work might need to be done.

“There is nothing like that around this area,” Lewis said.

Cross said Mountwood Park has 600 acres and 12 miles of trails which side-by-sides and motorcycles could do within a day.

“However, a jeep looking for obstacles, they may spend half a day just on one obstacle,” he said. “They can go through the trails and go to a rock garden and play on that for a day with other jeeps watching how they do it and then each one trying to go over it or do a hill climb.”

Many of those people would be interested in camping along a trail which is something to look into, officials said.

“It is always nice to have something new and something different,” Lewis said.

Cross talked about the park receiving a $2.6 million grant to build a new campground within the main park area, two new cabins, an observation tower and more.

“With that there will be 5-7 miles of professionally built mountain bike trails,” he said, adding they are working on the environmental assessment on that which is expected to take six months and then they can put the project out for engineering and design.

Commissioner Robert Tebay asked if more could be done at the Smoot Theatre in Parkersburg that could rival what is happening at the Peoples Bank Theater in Marietta. Lewis said work is being done to see what can happen.

Lewis talked about the new Discovery World Museum in downtown entering its second year. Marketing has been happening to get young families in with young children to be able to spend a night in the area.

“They did so well this past year,” he said of over 47,000 visitors last year.

Blennerhassett Island remains one of the main tourist attractions in the area.

The new Greater Parkersburg Convention & Visitors Bureau Welcome Center at 113 Ann St. has brought in more people since moving into the former Point Park Marketplace building over a year and a half ago. Lewis said they have had over 7,000 visitors in that facility over the last year compared to 584 they had the last full year they were at their old location at Seventh and Avery streets.

“Being right there on the way to and from the (Blennerhassett) island we are able to talk to that many people in person to recommend local restaurants and be able to tell them about local shops and tell them about the attractions they don’t know about,” Lewis said of Henderson Hall, the Oil and Gas Museum and more. “It has been fantastic.”

The new Wood County Resiliency Center will give the area additional capacity they have lacked, Lewis said. Officials have talked about being able to hold large meetings at the space, including state association meetings, legislative interim meetings and more that can take advantage of the breakout rooms that will be available.

“We have not been able to host some groups because of limitations (in existing facilities),” Lewis said.

Commissioner Jimmy Colombo said it will be another tool to attract people to the area, especially with its proximity to the Blennerhassett Hotel and more downtown.

“It will help put the `C’ back in CVB (Convention and Visitors Bureau),” Commission President Blair Couch said.

Brett Dunlap can be reached at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com