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At the old Armstrong High School, Mayor Dwight C. Jones marks the beginning of a project to overhaul the Creighton Court public housing community in the city's East End. (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Alumni of the old Armstrong High School attended the ceremony marking the start of the project to overhaul the Creighton Court public housing community in the city’s East End. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Mayor Dwight C. Jones, leaders from the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority and alumni of the old Armstrong High School gathered on Monday afternoon to mark the beginning of the long-awaited East End revitalization project.
The ceremony, held outside the beloved school, served as a formal groundbreaking for the ambitious project set forth by Jones’ administration back in 2013. The goal is to overhaul the 504-unit Creighton Court public housing community in the city’s East End and replace it with a new mixed-income community that includes 900 homes and apartments. Beyond housing, the city has pledged to increase access to opportunity for Creighton families.
“From this building will rise a phoenix of new possibility and transformation of persons who will be able to have better lives and better environments to live in,” Jones told a crowd of several hundred people.
The old Armstrong High School is located on 31st Street adjacent to Creighton. Its demolition has been on hold for months, but will begin in earnest before year’s end, after the city completes an “environmental abatement,” said Marcia Davis, RRHA’s chief real estate development officer. New homes will start going up in the summer of 2017, after subsurface improvements are made and a new street grid is laid on the 21-acre parcel, Davis added.
The Creighton redevelopment plan is central to Jones’ anti-poverty initiative. It was dealt a blow in September, when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban development passed it over for a competitive $30 million grant. Had Richmond been awarded the money, the new construction would have unfolded over the next five years. Now, it could take a decade or longer.
