Cleveland Avenue Homes is being torn down. But first, Winston-Salem officials are documenting its history.

Choice Neighborhood is moving forward thanks to a $30 million federal grant the Housing Authority of Winston-Salem was awarded in 2020. As part of the requirements for getting the federal money, the city has to determine the historical significance of Cleveland Avenue Homes.

A dilapidated public housing complex that many remember being built may not seem that historic, but a survey shows that Cleveland Avenue Homes is only one of two remaining public housing complexes built by HAWS during the years after World War II.

The public housing complex would actually qualify for the National Register of Historic Places.

“Since they will be tearing down those older buildings, we are seeking public comment on them,” said Kelly Bennett, a planner with the city.

Bennett said the outcome will be a catalogue of historical records that document how federal legislation after the New Deal influenced public housing, urban renewal and highway construction here.

A big part of that story is how racial discrimination influenced the decisions that were made around those developments.

In addition to an architectural and historical survey that’s already been carried out, the city is asking for public comments by a March 10 deadline.

In May of 1952, the Housing Authority of Winston-Salem announced plans for the 244-unit housing complex on Cleveland Avenue that would be built for low-income residents. But only Black residents could live in the development. A separate public housing complex was reserved for whites.

In the process of creating Cleveland Avenue Homes, the authority would tear down 105 houses considered to be of substandard quality. It was the sort of slum clearance program that was considered at the time to be the best solution for people living in poverty-stricken areas.

Now, of course, the clearance programs are seen as ones that destroyed both businesses and homes in sections of the city that were once the center of vibrant communities.

In fact, the city in 2021 apologized for its role in taking part in past urban renewal and highway construction projects that went through Black neighborhoods.

“There were lots of federal programs that by our standards today were definitely ill-conceived,” Bennett said. “The project with the longest-lasting impact has been the siting of U.S. 52, and tearing down neighborhoods where people lived. A lot of cities did that all over the country. That does not make it right.”

Cleveland Avenue Homes was the fourth project by the housing authority carried out here. The people displaced by the construction were housed in another low-income housing project called Kimberley Park Terrace.

Kimberly Park Terrace was demolished in 1997, and Happy Hill Gardens was demolished in 2004. Besides Cleveland Avenue Homes, Piedmont Park is the only remaining public housing complex from the early postwar era.

Kevin Cheshire, the director of HAWS, said Cleveland Avenue Homes is “culturally significant” as an example of its type, even though it isn’t what someone would build today.

As is being done in the Choice Neighborhood project, the modern approach is to aim for a mixed-income neighborhood that also has a variety of different housing styles, Cheshire said.

“The industry has moved away from the barrack-style housing into the more mixed-income housing, where the community reflects the larger community,” Cheshire said.

Work on the Choice Neighborhood plan started last December, when a groundbreaking was held on the site of the former Brown Elementary School on Highland Avenue.

In an effort to minimize the disruption of relocation to current Cleveland Avenue Homes residents, HAWS is starting the redevelopment project with the construction of 84 apartments on the former school site.

Although environmental studies, including the historical survey, are signs that work is approaching at the site of Cleveland Avenue Homes proper, Cheshire said it may not be until the first quarter of 2024 that demolition begins on some of the units at the housing project.

Still, work is coming along well on the Brown school site, Cheshire said, noting that buildings are being framed and roof trusses put in place.

Cheshire said the results of the historical documentation on Cleveland Avenue Homes could end up in the public library or some other repository, or in digitized form that would allow for research.