CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Charleston’s Mayor Amy Shuler Goodwin delivered her State of the City Address Thursday evening during Charleston’s City Council meeting.
Amy Shuler Goodwin
Goodwin says that this address highlighted the evolution of Charleston since she took office six years ago.
“If I had to put a theme to this, it’s the story of Charleston, how it has evolved in the past six years and what it’s going to be in the next couple of years as well,” she said.
Goodwin went through a multitude of accomplishments the Capital City saw in 2024, including the city’s presence within the $52 billion sports tourism industry.
Goodwin said May’s USA Cycling Pro Road Championship in Charleston was a large step.
“We took the national spotlight this year and we’re going to for four more years as we host the USA Cycling Pro Road National Championship,” Goodwin said. “We brought in 435 athletes from 46 different states, and for our hotels and restaurants and bars, we brought in $44.6 million for them. That’s big.”
Goodwin also says the Capital City made its presence known in the high school sports sector.
“We also brought back, again, after 30 years, the State Football Championship,” Goodwin said. “We also brought back cheering, and we continue to call volleyball, basketball, baseball, and track signature Charleston events. We are a sports destination.”
Another boast for Goodwin in the speech to council members was the ability to receive federal grant money during her time in office.
“In six years, we have secured $60 million of federal funding,” Goodwin said. “Yes, it is because of Senator Joe Manchin and Senator Shelley Moore Capito and our relationship with them, but also, it is because of their love and their passion to see every single city in the Mountain State thrive.”
$25 million of the $60 million received during Goodwin’s administration is going towards the new Capital Connector Project, which connects Charleston’s West Side with its East End by enhancing the riverfront area. This project, which has an estimated implementation phase set for summer of 2025, will feature enhanced crosswalks, better signage and lighting, more public restrooms, and widening of trails to make the city more walkable and bikeable.
Goodwin says the Capital Connector will allow Charleston to embrace the “river city” title.
“We’re transforming our riverfront,” Goodwin said. “We’re finally going to be a river city that uses our river.”
Goodwin also spoke on a success from the administration that may not appear as glamorous as the sports tourism wins and large amounts of federal funding. Goodwin says the Charleston Land Reuse Agency has been a large accomplishment during her six years in office.
“In the six years I’ve been here, I’ve torn down 625 houses. I hate it. I hate saying that because I don’t think that you can build a city up by tearing everything down, but 625 structures had to come down. They were unsafe,” Goodwin said.
Before her speech, Goodwin met with media, and she said all the successes she was ready to highlight Thursday evening would not have happened without a lot of trial and error over time.
“It took us a lot of time to get our policies and our processes right,” Goodwin said. “Anytime you try new things, and we tried a lot of new things, we failed. We didn’t do so great at everything, but the things that mattered, we did because our heads, and most important, our hearts were always in the right direction.”