By Charles Owens
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
WELCH — Excavation work should be getting underway soon on a new connector route in Welch that will allow motorists to enter the Coalfields Expressway corridor in the fall of 2027.
The new connector route is planned adjacent to Welch Community Hospital. It will be the next phase of excavation work on the Coalfields Expressway project in McDowell County, according to Josh Howell, a District 10 construction engineer with the West Virginia Department of Transportation.
Work on a five-mile section of the Coalfields Expressway near Welch began three years ago. Once the project is finished in late 2027, it will be the first ever section of four-lane highway in McDowell County’s history.
“There is no four-lane here,” Welch Mayor Harold McBride said. “That will be the first one opened up. Very exciting to me. Very exciting. It’s just one step closer. You know Rome wasn’t built in a day. We just have to stop being negative. We are gaining everyday. We are going to be absolutely fantastic.”
McBride said the new connector route is planned behind the hospital and near the site of the former McDowell County Board of Education offices in Welch. The school system’s central office was relocated to Tom’s Mountain near Mount View High School to make way for the Coalfields Expressway project.
Work on the connector road is expected to start soon, according to McBride.
“They are getting ready to do it,” McBride said of the connector route. “I am starting to get excited. We are very close. Little by little we are getting there.”
While some power lines have been removed in that general area, the utility work is unrelated to the Coalfields Expressway project, according to Appalachian Power spokesman George Porter.
Paving work also will get underway this year on sections of the Coalfields Expressway in Welch, according to Howell.
“The project is underway and will begin to be paved on the main portion of the proposed roadway throughout 2026,” Powell said.
But there is still other work that must be done before the Coalfields Expressway project can be finished, according to Powell.
“Currently, there is still a gas line relocation that has delayed the bridge construction work on the WV (Route) 16 end of the project,” Powell said. “Upon relocation of this main gas line, the bridge work across Indian Creek will begin.”
That section of the highway will connect it with neighboring Wyoming County.
While state highway officials had originally predicted a 2026 completion date for the Coalfields Expressway project in McDowell County, the current project completion date is now the fall of 2027 for traffic to utilize the four lane.
Work on the Coalfields Expressway project in McDowell County dates back to 2001. That was when the late U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd traveled to Welch to break ground on what was ultimately a non-paved and to date non-useable section of the roadway. Work on the current five-mile stretch of the four-lane got underway in 2022.
The nearly $150 million project will take the Coalfields Expressway from the area near Welch Community Hospital to the Wyoming County line.
The Coalfields Expressway will ultimately extend through both West Virginia and Virginia.
The full West Virginia routing of the Coalfields Expressway will take the new four-lane corridor from Welch in McDowell County toward Pineville in Wyoming County and Beckley in Raleigh County. In neighboring Virginia, the Coalfields Expressway will extend through Buchanan, Dickenson and Wise counties.
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