This week, Huntington is hosting the BAD (blighted, abandoned and dilapidated) Buildings Summit, an event that aims to inspire other communities to renovate their dilapidated and abandoned buildings and give them the tools and skills to accomplish those goals.
The summit kicked off Tuesday evening at Marshall University’s Visual Arts Center with a bus tour around the city to showcase some of the areas that Huntington has renovated into productive properties.
“There is no better place to have this summit than the VAC,” Bryan Chambers, communications director for the city of Huntington, said. “It sat empty for roughly twenty years.”
The first stop on the tour was a Habitat for Humanity house that is being built exclusively for veterans.
“This is the first house being built as part of the veterans housing initiative,” David Michael of Habitat for Humanity said. “This is a great opportunity to reach out to veterans who were previously homeless.”
Another stop on the tour was Northcott Court on Hal Greer Boulevard, which is currently in the process of being cleared.
“We will not rebuild public housing on this property,” said Larry Ellis, department director of the Huntington Housing Authority. “The community has expressed that is not what they want. It is about the community, not just one or two blocks.”
At one of the stops on the tour, the participants in the summit learned about the SCRATCH project garden. The Maudella Taylor garden, built where a dilapidated building once stood, is a community garden that helps teach children how to grow crops and sell them in the current market.
“The biggest thing about this project is the kids seeing what it was, and seeing what it can be, which is a beautiful and productive garden,” said Melissa Stewart, of West Virginia State College and the SCRATCH project.
Participants in the summit are hopeful about the help that these strategies can bring to their cities.
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