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And the city has torn down the similar complex next to Washington Elementary (name escapes me) and will be attempting revitalization there as well. Since it's not tucked between government and 2 established middle class residential areas, we'll have to see how they do.
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Originally Posted by evaofnc
Ahh yes, the infamous Chavis Heights. My husband attended Washington Elementary and told me some interesting stories about things that would go on right across the street from the school in those projects. He was shocked when we drove by the other day and they had torn them all down. It's such a shame to see that area just fenced off with no trespassing signs. It's federal property so I wonder if that and the economic crash are the two big things keeping it from being redeveloped.
For what it's worth, the housing project across from Washington School that was torn-down last year and is now just a fenced-off construction area was Walnut Terrace. Chavis Heights was a different housing project, along Haywood Street between Lenoir Street and MLK Boulevard, across from Ligon School. It was torn-down several years ago, and has already been replaced by mixed-income residential.
Oops, yes I always mixed up Chavis Heights and Walnut Terrace. Interesting it was just torn down a year ago. By the condition of the lot it looked like it had been longer ago than that. Is there any official plan in the works for it or is it just to sit abandoned for the time being?
I guess that means Heritage Park is the only project still left in the downtown Raleigh area?
Like has been said, growth needs to occur organically. If Raleigh keeps improving the downtown, the E/SE areas will eventually be dragged up as the location becomes too good to ignore. It will start with enterprising folks with higher risk tolerance and they will start improving the neighborhood, and become homeowners. The city needs to simply be supportive through zoning and regulations that don't hinder rejuvination. Bad zoning and planning can ruin a city.
That's part of what's already happened in other parts of Raleigh's urban core (let's not forget that as recently as 20 years ago, neighborhoods like Five Points, Boylan Heights, and the area across from N.C. State were suffering from some of the same problems, with lots of shoddy rental real estate, and were not particularly desirable places to live), as well as in lots of other cities, and to an extent it's already happened and happening east of downtown. All of that is my opinion, of course, so we'll see what happens. But I would bet you good money that in another five or ten or fifteen years, you'll see many of those areas you now view so negatively will be even more vibrant and "gentrified" (for better or worse).
Once upon a time, Oakwood was a neighborhood that people talked about needing to be redeveloped and look at it now.
When I first moved into my neighborhood I went to a community meeting where we talked about the issues of african americans who have had families living there for decades and while weary of the gentrification, have made mention that they have seen improvement in the area. I see both sides of the issues of forced change and gentrification, and during a council meeting I attended could see through their arguments where some folks that have spent their lifetime in an area not wanting it to change and others seeing how change could benefit them - I can definately see both sides of the issue.
Oops, yes I always mixed up Chavis Heights and Walnut Terrace. Interesting it was just torn down a year ago. By the condition of the lot it looked like it had been longer ago than that. Is there any official plan in the works for it or is it just to sit abandoned for the time being?
I guess that means Heritage Park is the only project still left in the downtown Raleigh area?
Yeah, they certainly made quick work of the Walnut Terrace buildings. And yes, it was (at least mostly) torn-down last year; I live not far from there, and I first noticed the demolition some time in late June of last year (June, 2011), and I'm not sure exactly when it began, but it appeared to be mostly complete by late July. I'm pretty sure the last residents were moved-out of Walnut Terrace several months prior to that, in the fall of 2010, and then the buildings were razed in the summer of 2011. I've got to say, it made me a little bit sad and nostalgic to see Walnut Terrace gone (though I never lived there or spent much time there), but I think it's safe to say that in the big picture it's almost certainly best for all involved.
I don't know either precisely what the plan is for that site, but it's certainly not intended to stay vacant for long. Despite the notoriety of the Walnut Terrace legacy, and the proximity to some other seedy landmarks like the city homeless shelter and the King's Motel, it's actually a pretty choice piece of land in a potentially terrific location. I believe the general plan is to redevelop the site as mixed-use, mixed-income, medium-density residential, including a mixture of public housing, rent-controlled housing, and market-priced housing. That would make it very similar to the way that the former Halifax Court and Chavis Heights sites were redeveloped, and they mostly seem to have been pretty successful. Hopefully the erstwhile Walnut Terrace will be at least as good, or maybe even better, seeing as it's such a prominent and conspicuous location. I know that back around the time when Walnut Terrace was being torn-down, I read that there were funding issues that might delay the redevelopment for a while. And indeed not much happened on the site for about a year or so, but just over the past few weeks I've noticed some grading and earth-moving equipment beginning to work on the site, so maybe something is happening. I'll ask around and see if I can find out more detail about exactly what's going on there, what the specific plan is, and what the timeframe is. I know I'm curious.
And yeah, I guess Heritage Park is now the last public housing project left extant anywhere around the downtown Raleigh area. And of course, even it isn't quite the old-school World War II-era public housing like Walnut Terrace, Halifax Court, and Chavis Heights were. It will be interesting to see what the future of Heritage Park will be. I haven't heard anything about it getting the wrecking ball, and it's clearly newer, more modern, and less of a dump than Walnut Terrace was. But it's sitting on a piece of land that's even more valuable per square foot than Walnut Terrace, albeit much smaller. And the very concept of solid blocks of uniformly low-income public housing has fallen so far out of favor these days that it's hard to imagine Heritage Park remaining there too much longer.
Funny I actually drove by Walnut Terrace the other day and I saw a few construction people on the site. Couldn't tell what they were doing because the dirt stockpile is between the street and the site.
I went to Washington the last year it was a 6th grade center and I did a 10 month construction project there improving handicap access in the early 90's so I'm very familiar with the area. Some crazy stuff went on, but most of the residents were pretty cool. Interestingly I also worked on some renovations to Halifax Ct before that.
Funny I actually drove by Walnut Terrace the other day and I saw a few construction people on the site. Couldn't tell what they were doing because the dirt stockpile is between the street and the site.
I went to Washington the last year it was a 6th grade center and I did a 10 month construction project there improving handicap access in the early 90's so I'm very familiar with the area. Some crazy stuff went on, but most of the residents were pretty cool. Interestingly I also worked on some renovations to Halifax Ct before that.
Yeah, I actually had mostly pretty positive experiences with Walnut Terrace, too, and also with public housing more broadly. My father spent part of his childhood living in public housing, and despite being poor at the time and having various other problems, he has mostly fond memories of it. In middle school and high school, a lot of my classmates came from a couple of nearby housing projects, and most of them were just normal, good kids. I even went a few times to go play after school at the home of a friend of mine who was one of the kids from the projects, and had a good time and no problems. And at Walnut Terrace specifically, I used to sometimes walk or ride my bike through there (during the day mainly, since even I was uneasy about going through there on-foot at night), and found it to be a surprisingly pleasant and friendly place (at least toward somebody like me, a nondescript white guy who generally looks like neither a threat nor a target). But Walnut Terrace was certainly still not a place I'd ever have wanted to live, and I guess nobody really did if they had other options. Walnut Terrace clearly was the site of way too much crime (at least by Raleigh standards) and other societal dysfunction, and so it's undeniably for the best that it got torn-down. And the trend away from those massive public housing projects in most cities across the country seems to be clearly a positive development overall. But I do still have a bit of a soft spot in my heart for public housing, at least from afar.
Chavis heights was by Ligon Middle. A guy killed his girlfriend in a house behind the cafeteria when I went there years ago. Crazy stuff. As a student I never felt unsafe though.
Have you been through those areas? And I do not mean on the"outskirts" of it either. In the heart of it, you would think you are in a third world country.
Personally, since I've been robbed and damn near stabbed and shot in the area, I will just go ahead and say that I'd rather the area stay like it is vs. spread the crime all around Raleigh which is how they would attempt to "fix" the area.
Have you ever been to a third world country? That's over exaggeration at it's finest. If you think those areas look like third world countries, you would have a heart attack if you visited NYC or Chicago. Raleigh is a clean city, even in the less desired areas.
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