Groundbreaking Oct. 31 on East End community transformation
10/30/2016, 10:24 a.m.
The former Armstrong High School is about to be cleared away to make room on the 22-acre site for a new mixed-income community to include up to 250 apartments and 50 single-family homes, according to approved plans.
Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones will lead the official groundbreaking for the projected $45 million housing development at 2 p.m. Monday, Oct. 31, at the school site at Nine Mile Road and North 31st Street.
Members of City Council will join the mayor and area residents in celebrating the beginning of what City Hall views as a community transformation that could aid in reducing poverty in the East End.
Representatives of the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority, which is overseeing the project for the city, and the developer, the nonprofit Boston-based The Community Builders, also are expected to attend.
Tearing down the old school building that has been unused since 2004 and constructing new homes represents the first step toward an overhaul of the nearby 504-unit Creighton Court public housing community.
When the apartments are complete in about a year, some Creighton Court residents will move in, enabling The Community Builders to begin the far larger redevelopment of the public housing community’s 30-acre site. — JEREMY M. LAZARUS
