After four months of being closed, Fairfax Street in Berkeley Springs was reopened to auto and foot traffic yesterday.
The street was fenced off after an April 27, 2015 fire gutted a building that housed businesses and apartments.
Over the past few weeks, workers have been tearing down the third floor of the burned out building.
But the building won’t be completely torn down until after the Apple Butter Festival in October.
“We want to make sure that the street is open for the Apple Butter Festival,” Merki said during an interview on This Week in Morgan County, a new half hour community television show.
Merki said that after Apple Butter, the street will be closed again and the rest of the building will be torn down.
Once the building is taken down, what will go in that space?
Merki said that the representatives of the owners of the building are saying that they just want to get the building down before any decisions are made.
“They want to get the building down, have it backfilled so that road and sidewalk can be opened up,” Merki said. “I would hope somebody would come in and build the building back to what it was.”
On the issue of truck traffic through town, Merki said that he was told years ago by the state of West Virginia “that there is really no way to get the truck traffic” off US 522.”
“I don’t know what the solution is for the trucks,” Merki said. “I don’t think there can be anything done about it. The state will not ban trucks.”
Although the state of Virginia banned trucks off Rt. 17 — a roadway that connects US 66 and Rt. 50.
Why couldn’t something similar be done in Berkeley Springs?
“You would have to get the state on board and the state is not on board,” Merki said.
“Years ago, they wanted to make 522 a toll road,” Merki said. “I’m not in favor of a toll road. I spoke out against it six or seven years ago. I wanted the trucks off the roadway, except for the local trucks. Hancock banned trucks from going through town years ago, except for local deliveries. They had a lot of truck traffic travelling through Hancock. So they made an ordinance that trucks over a certain weight could not come through town.”
How come Hancock can do it but Berkeley Springs can’t?
“I’m not sure,” Merki said. “That’s something we need to look into.”
Merki said he has mixed feelings about a possible bypass around town.
“Business owners say they will lose business if there is a bypass,” Merki said. “Ninety percent of the truck traffic is not stopping in our town. They might stop in Morgan Square where they can get in and out easily. This is a tourist destination. And that’s where we are getting a good amount of our business.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever see the bypass in my lifetime. Maybe my grandchildren may see it.
Merki said that if we could figure out a way to get the trucks to stay on interstates — 70 and 81 — “that would be preferable.”
“Local trucks, truckers who make their homes here, are more than welcome,” Merki said. “I don’t care if they come through here 100 times a day. But preferably, I’d like to see the thru trucks go down 70 to 81 to Winchester.”
“We don’t have any scales here in Morgan County,” Merki said. “If we had some type of scale, you might see some of these trucks go a different route. Some of them are trying to get by the scale houses.”
On the train depot at the north side of town, Merki said that renovations are ongoing.
“That building looks really good now and I’m ticked with what has been accomplished,” Merki said.
What’s going into the train depot?
“I don’t know what it is going to become,” Merki said. “People say they want a visitors center or a welcome center. The problem with that is that we have a visitors center in town. I would like to see it become more of a hub where we have some literature in there and then we point them to our local visitors center. It has not been decided.”
“I’ve suggested maybe putting our local police department down that way,” Merki said. “That’s what we are thinking. That’s just throwing it out there.”
Merki also suggested that the public get a say in what goes into the train depot. “Let’s have the public vote on it,” Merki said. “That’s the public’s building just as much as it’s the Town of Bath’s.”
Merki said that as a young man he worked at the local Tastee Freeze — which was at the site of the current Sheetz.
A new Sheetz will be opening on the corner of Rt. 13 and US 522.
Will the Rt. 9 Sheetz remain open when the new Sheetz opens?
“No,” Merki said. “That’s what I’m hearing. They will close it down. Who knows what that will become?”