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Staff writer Andrew Barksdale
City of Fayettville receives $20 million Hope VI grant
The grant will allow the city to replace two sprawling public housing complexes along Old Wilmington Road, and help leverage an additional $93 million in public and private money for a combined $113 million investment.
The project, which could take four years to complete, could be one of the largest and most significant redevelopment efforts in the city’s history.
“This is huge news for this community, not just for the the city,” Mayor Tony Chavonne said Thursday evening. “You are talking about people who have been left behind in that community for decades.”
Officials say the neighborhoods in downtown — bounded by Gillespie Street, East Russell Street and Eastern Boulevard — has one of the highest poverty and crime rates in the city.
“Old Wilmington Road was Fayetteville’s largest African-American ghetto prior to desegregation,” said the application for the grant filed by the city.
With the money, the Fayetteville Metropolitan Housing Authority will demolish the public housing complexes of Campbell Terrace and Delona Gardens, which are about 1,000 feet apart. Their barracks-style buildings comprise 249 units built in the 1940s and 1950s.
A mix of single-family homes, town houses and apartments — 747 units in all — will be built, mostly in that neighborhood but some elsewhere in the city on land that has yet to be identified. Some units will be sold on the open market.
In addition, a new community resource center and a day care center will go up in the neighborhood. Open space and a small business campus for defense contractors would also be developed as part of the plan.
The $20 million grant, known as Hope VI, will come from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The announcement came shortly after 5 p.m. Thursday from the office of U.S. Rep. Mike McIntyre. The Democrat from Lumberton said he had worked with Fayetteville officials on the application.
“I am thrilled that we have been able to work this out,” he said in an interview. “This is a great opportunity to create positive momentum that will permanently change the lives of many of the families of Fayetteville.”
A similar Hope VI application by the city was turned down a year ago. The city sought the grant a second time last fall, one of 29 applications from around the country. Only four or five are awarded each year.
Calvin Poole Jr., chairman of the housing authority, said one reason the agency won the grant was because it consistently performs well in federal audits. More HERE
