MORGANTOWN — A representative of the West Virginia Division of Highways said the state’s current expectation is the Morgantown Industrial Park access road and bridge project will be completed in the winter of 2026.

The Dominion Post reached out to the DOH for a project update and to ask when it’s expected the project may force the temporary closure of the Mon River Rail-Trail.

According to information provided by DOH engineers Jason Foster and Mike Witherow, details about exactly when the trail will be closed will be worked out by the contractor, Triton Construction, and the Mon River Trails Conservancy, the nonprofit that manages and maintains the trail network.

However, Foster previously explained that both the project’s contract documents and the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, are very clear that the trail will only be closed during times of significant overhead work, or when the safety of trail users is a concern.

According to the DOH, steel isn’t expected to start going up until early 2026.

“The contractor is currently installing erosion control. Tree removal and installation of a sediment pond are expected to start soon,” the DOH explained on April 29.

The DOH said the $59.7 million cost estimate remains in effect with no changes expected.

The project will improve the industrial park’s existing Rail Street, cross the river on a multi-span bridge, and join U.S. 119 (Grafton Road) near Scott Avenue. A connection to Smithtown Road will also be built and a portion of Master Graphics Road – connecting to River Road – will be improved and paved.

Around this time last year, representatives of the DOH said the entire process had been “extremely accelerated” out of a concern for public safety due to the increasing number of large trucks accessing the industrial park.

Beyond public safety, the state also has a promise to keep.

For the last four-plus years, the West Virginia Department of Transportation, Enrout Properties and the Monongalia County Commission have been working toward the construction of a new Harmony Grove interchange to provide direct interstate access to the upper portion of the Morgantown Industrial Park.

The Harmony Grove interchange was promised by the state to help land the massive Mountaintop Beverage facility in West Virginia.

Trucks started rolling in and out of the 330,000 square feet that comprise Phase I of the bottling plant in May 2023, but due to the complexities of the federal regulatory process involving interstate projects, the DOH couldn’t make good on the interchange in a timely manner.

So, in July 2023 the state announced that it was not only going to push forward with the Harmony Grove interchange, but build a bridge across the Monongahela River to the MIP in the meantime.

The DOH says details of the Harmony Grove project remain under review by the Federal Highway Administration.

“We continue to work with both the West Virginia Department of Highways and the Federal Highway Administration on, we think, the final set of comments as it relates to the Harmony Grove interchange project,” Enrout Properties co-owner Glenn Adrian said during his most recent update to the Monongalia County Commission. “We remain very optimistic that project is continuing to move forward. It is a very complicated process to get approved, but we think we are close to getting that approval.”