Congress approves money to help extend Greensboro greenway, rehab toxic park, build academy at Southeast Guilford High

Mar. 13—Congress approved $4 million on Friday to help Greensboro complete the city's Atlantic and Yadkin Greenway, connecting it with downtown.

It's the biggest line item from among 10 projects in Guilford County that Congress choose to fund in the appropriations package. Those 10 projects received about $11.8 million combined.

Money will also go to remediate a Greensboro park that was built over an unregulated landfill and to build a career academy to help students prepare for advanced manufacturing jobs related to hybrid and electric vehicles.

The A&Y Greenway is a hard-surface trail for cyclists and pedestrians, built on an abandoned railroad bed. It stretches from Summerfield south to Greensboro'sLawndale Crossing shopping center.

The money is to help the City of Greensboro construct a "high-quality" connection between downtown and the existing A&Y greenway three miles to the north.

According to U.S. Rep. Kathy Manning, the project will help people looking for transportation alternatives, "providing safety and environmental benefits to the City and region."

Greensboro Communications Manager Jake Keys said that a consultant is expected to start soon on the design for the construction of the A&Y Greenway, from Hill Street to Rollins Road. Later this year, the city should have an engineer's estimate for construction and the city will know then if the $4 million will be enough to complete the project, Keys said.

The 10 projects for Guilford County are among 15 funded for the Sixth District through Congress' Community Project Funding appropriations process, also known as earmarks.

The Sixth District currently includes all of Guilford County and parts of Forsyth, Rockingham and Caswell counties. All of the 15 projects Manning submitted for funding received at least some of the money she requested for them.

According to Manning's Communications Director Gia Scirrotto, applications for funding from local governments, institutes of higher education and non-profits are all processed in the same manner. Manning's team goes through the applications, she said, looking for what will make the biggest impact and what would be most likely to be passed by Congress. Then, she said, Manning works to talk to congressional leaders and try to get the selected projects included.

Among the Sixth District projects, the second biggest amount of money is about $1.2 million for remediation at Bingham Park, a neighborhood park in East Greensboro that was built over an unregulated landfill. That project would remove existing waste and soil and install backfill, as well as a soil cover "to provide the necessary protection from where waste remains."

During a community meeting in September 2022, the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality presented a risk assessment that said children disturbing the park's soil "could be exposed to arsenic, iron, manganese, nickel and lead" and that estimated full waste removal at the site could cost upward of $39.8 million.

Some funding has already been granted by the state, but City leaders asked state legislators last week to consider allocating more this year toward helping Greensboro complete the project.

"The sooner we get that, the sooner we start to move into the right direction, to change the environmental injustice that has been in East Greensboro for many years," Councilwoman Sharon Hightower told local elected leaders in a special meeting on March 4.

Cheryl Johnson, a neighbor of the park who has three grandchildren, also spoke to the legislators on behalf of the council's request.

"They ask me everyday why can't we go there, why do we have to stay in the yard," she said. "We know that it's not going to be tomorrow that we will be able to go out into the park, but it's heartbreaking that people can't thrive where we live ... and so it's important for all of us that we make history, that we undo this injustice that's been done to us in our Black and brown community."

The list also includes two other grants to the City of Greensboro.

"We thank Congresswoman Kathy Manning for playing a key role in our community receiving this much needed funding," said Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan. "The nearly $7 million dollars will contribute to quality of life projects, such as the Atlantic & Yadkin Greenway, remediating contamination and restoring Bingham Park, improving the historic J. Douglas Galyon Depot, and developing the Windsor Chavis Nocho Community Complex located in east Greensboro."

Other recipients include Guilford County, the City of High Point, Gibsonville, Habitat for Humanity of Greater Greensboro, Southwest Renewal Foundation of High Point, and Guilford County Schools.

The funding for Guilford County Schools is $850,000 for renovating and upfitting space within Southeast Guilford High School for an Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering Signature Career Academy.

Guilford County Schools leaders had originally hoped to open that career academy along with five others that launched in 2019. As with other signature career academies, the idea was to set students on the path to in-demand career fields.

Instead, the school board scrapped plans to open the career academy at Southeast Guilford in order to pay for repairs to the Gateway Education Center to keep that school for students with disabilities open. That change came after after parents rose up in opposition to a plan from then-Superintendent Sharon Contreras to close Gateway.

However, Toyota later announced a new plant for electric vehicle batteries in Randolph County. That's a move with the potential for major impacts in the nearby Southeast Guilford area, with Toyota and other manufacturers serving as a potential employers for Southeast Guilford High School graduates.

"This project is an appropriate use of taxpayer funds because building cohesive education pathways in this field will build the talent pipeline needed to fill the growing number of local jobs in the advanced manufacturing sector," Manning wrote in a letter to the chairwoman and the ranking member of the House appropriations committee.

Jessie.Pounds@greensboro.com

336-373-7002

@JessiePounds

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