Urban Farm to Open in Historic Fourth Ward, Was Public Housing
The Truly Living Well Center has partnered with the Wheat Street Baptist Church to lease four acres of land for an urban farm in the Historic Fourth Ward. A groundbreaking was held on December 05, 2010.
The site used to be a housing project, but many of Atlanta’s destroyed housing projects, there were no plans for redevelopment. Currently, the plot sits empty.
Jay Tribbi from Councilman Kwanza Hall’s (District 2) office tells APN that the urban farm will be up to full swing in the spring and summer of 2011, and that it will open be temporary.
“Wheat Street Baptist Church has a historic tradition of being a part of feeding people, starting with the food co-op started by Rev. Hosea Williams and Rev. William H. Borders, Sr., who was my predecessor, that evolved into ‘Hosea Feed The Children,’” Rev. Dr. Michael Neely Harris, Pastor of Wheat Street Baptist Church, said in a press release. “The TLW project continues that tradition and we are proud to be a part of it.”
”This is exciting news for the Old Fourth Ward,” Councilman Hall said in the release. “Just three years after we brought together hundreds of community members for a year long master planning process, our vision of the neighborhood as a test bed of innovation for the city as a whole, is coming true.”
The plot is eventually plotted for the redevelopment of low-income housing, but the developers are having a difficult time finding financing for it at the current moment.
The work is being funded by an investment from the Arthur M. Blank Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency.