NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — City and project leaders broke ground Thursday morning on 73 new apartments along Washington Avenue, not far from City Hall.
The development marks the start of the fifth and final phase of the city's Marshall-Ridley Choice Neighborhood Initiative, a decade-long effort aided by federal dollars to transform the East End and downtown areas.
Mayor Phillip Jones says the project is about creating affordable, modern housing. Residents say they have been involved from the start.
"This is going to be a bridge. This is going to be housing that's connected to the shipyard, to city hall, to downtown and also to that southeast community," Jones said.
Teante Gray of the East End Civic Association spoke to what the groundbreaking means for the people who live there.
"I think this day means resilience. We were a part of this project from the beginning. We had a voice in the project. Certain things we wanted to see the city do and we stood on those principles that we wanted to see the city do," Grey said.
News 3 was there last year when the Legacy Landing Apartments along 16th Street opened. That represented the completion of phase one of the Downtown Choice Initiative.
Construction on the new Washington Avenue apartments is expected to be complete in August 2027. Over the course of the five phases, more than $120 million has been invested in the community.
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