‘On the Verge of Catalytic Change’

For the last two decades, the view from Lewis Byers’s barbershop on Glenwood Avenue hasn’t changed: brick walls, white-framed windows, a steeple, and a tower. The church complex has been his neighbor since Byers opened Glenwood Barr-ber Shop in 2008.

“That’s all I’ve seen there,” Byers said. “That’s all I’ve known.”

Glenwood United Methodist Church, which spans the block of Glenwood Avenue between Grove and Florida Streets, was first built in 1954. At almost 27,000 square feet, the building marks a significant footprint in the center of the working-class neighborhood. But soon, the lot could look drastically different. 

The city, which has owned the property since 2023, announced plans to sell the building and its surrounding lots last year. Last month, it opened the application process for interested parties.

According to both long-time residents and local business owners, what gets built in the church’s stead has the potential to change the trajectory of the Glenwood neighborhood for years to come.

“That location feels like it poses great risk and great opportunity for the neighborhood,” said Dayna Carr, the executive director of Glenwood Together, a nonprofit focused on services for the neighborhood. 

The History of the Block

In the church’s heyday, the block encompassed a bustling business corridor with families shopping at local markets and taking meals at cafes or the drugstore soda counter. But the area has seen a decline in recent decades. The church sits empty and in decay, while several storefronts across the street remain vacant. 

In the fifties, the area was a working-class white neighborhood. After desegregation, white residents left, changing its demographics and stability, resulting in decades of disinvestment, according to Liz Seymour, a longtime resident and vice president of the Greater Glenwood Neighborhood Association.

“It changed a lot in the 60s, 70s, into the 80s,” Seymour said. “So the city bought up some housing and redeveloped it and sold it, so they had to be owner-occupied, trying to stabilize the neighborhood that way. But it was a mix and a much more uneasy mix than it is now.”

Seymour bought her home in the 2000s, during a time when crime, including drug and human trafficking, was a significant factor. But in the last two decades, increasing investment by the city, new development by UNCG, and a tight-knit community have shifted Glenwood’s reality.

“Glenwood had become, among other things, a much more socially conscious, activist neighborhood,” Seymour said. 

Additionally, the area is one of the few remaining affordable neighborhoods in the city. While housing costs and rent have skyrocketed since the pandemic, average prices in the neighborhood remain lower than in many other parts of the city.

Carr said she’s seen the changes firsthand. Some of them have been positive, while others have priced longtime neighbors out of the area. That’s why the plans for the church lot are going to be vitally important, she said.

For Seymour, it’s less about what goes in the space and more about who is leading the way.

“One thing that I feel very strongly about is, it has to be an organization that’s going to stick,” Seymour said. “I want to make sure that whoever buys it is not going to have buyer’s remorse because we’ve had that twice already.”

A Collaborative Process

Seymour knows what it’s like to be wary of new entities moving into the neighborhood, as she’s seen different organizations take over the building in the past decade.

In 2018, Christ United Methodist Church took ownership of the building and began using it as a second campus. It hosted weekly meals for neighbors and engaged with the community in a meaningful way, Seymour said. In 2023, after the pandemic, the city bought the lot from the church to repurpose the building as a city office. But plans to renovate the space fell apart in the years since, and the church has mostly been empty except for a few nonprofits that rented office space. 

“I’m less concerned about the specific use of the building and more about who’s doing it,” Seymour said.

Seymour said it’s important to ensure neighbors’ voices are being prioritized, and created an ad-hoc committee of residents who will meet with the city throughout the process to create a wish list for the site. So far, it’s been collaborative, she said.

Samuel Hunter, the housing and development director for the city, met with the neighborhood association in early December to outline the process and get feedback. 

Caitlin Bowers, the city’s neighborhood investment manager, said the city is recognizing the need for community input and investment. In the past, the city has worked to revitalize the neighborhood. In its 2020 “Housing GSO” affordable-housing plan, the city identified five areas for reinvestment, Glenwood among them.

“We recognize that Glenwood is one of those neighborhoods on the verge of catalytic change,” Bowers said. “Now that the city has ownership of [the property], we want to make sure it is community-centered.”

In December, the city opened its request for interest from entities looking to repurpose the building or demolish and construct a new building on the site. While Hunter did not disclose how many have expressed interest, he said the process will be competitive. The deadline to submit letters of interest is Jan. 30. Then the city will review them, narrowing the list down to a handful of options. The final entities will move on to a request for proposals process. Those will be presented to city council, which will make the final determination of the sale.

To craft the request for proposals, taking place in February, the city will continue meeting with neighbors, Hunter said.

“We will tailor the request for proposals based on community feedback,” Hunter said. “There may be some specific neighborhood items that may be important to them.”

Carr and others who have long lived in Glenwood say they want to see affordable housing and social services. But others, including local developers and business owners, say they want to see a different kind of block.

Differences in Opinion

Carr operates Glenwood Together, which she describes as a kind of neighborhood “living room.” Since its beginnings in 2022, the organization has offered everything from summer camps for kids to free health screenings to financial literacy programs. Anything that helps neighbors feel welcome and empowered, Carr said.

Glenwood Together has joined with Affordable Housing Management Inc. to submit a request for interest together. Carr said she’s known Grant Duffield, executive director, and Anna Blanchard, director of mission partnerships and real estate development, of AHM for years and trusts their work.

The nonprofit has been operating in the city for more than 50 years. Currently, the organization owns and manages 10 properties across Greensboro. These range from smaller, 16-unit buildings to larger complexes with 84 units. Rent ranges from $127-$800 per month.

Part of what makes their organization different, Blanchard said, is that they are involved in every step of the process for their projects. They work with residents on ideas, help plan the buildings, work on construction, and manage the properties after they are built. They also prioritize social services. Residents at all of their properties are eligible for continuing education funds, and families can get $300 each summer to pay for kids’ camps.

Working with Glenwood Together, the organization is brainstorming ideas of what could work in the neighborhood. Right now, they’re considering a building three to four stories tall that includes space for Glenwood Together to expand.

But what’s most important, Duffield said, is that they are letting the community lead the way.

“What we want to be able to do is partner with the community to propose something that brings strength,” Duffield said. “That reflects the community’s values, goals, and needs.”

Phillip Marsh, a local artist and urban design entrepreneur, also wants to see affordable housing on the site. Marsh runs GSOlab, an urban design business. 

Marsh owns a building near the Interactive Resource Center, the city’s homeless day center, and doesn’t want Glenwood to have the same experience. He pointed to trash, crime, and drugs as issues that affected him and other area businesses. In October 2024, a man was killed outside the center during a shooting.

“When that spiraled out of control, there were the real-world consequences of businesses going out of business,” Marsh said. “That could never be allowed to happen again. Someone lost their life.”

His experience owning that property informs his interest in Glenwood. Marsh said he wants to see housing there, including for seniors, as well as some workforce development programs. But it has to be done right, said Marsh, who does not live in the neighborhood.

“Hopefully the city makes the right decisions to support smart growth at that location,” he said.

For Greg Porter and Keith Fantroy with Glenwood Holdings, that means commercial property. The developers have owned properties across the street from the church for 20 years, including the storefronts where Byers runs his barber shop.

The two say they don’t want to see affordable housing at the site. Neither lives in Glenwood.

“I feel pretty strongly that it does not need to be housing,” Porter said. “I know there’s a housing problem in Greensboro….in terms of affordability, and they want to build 10,000 homes. All of that is admirable, and we’re supportive, but not on this property.”

Porter points to the Glenwood Neighborhood Plan, which was adopted in 2008 and amended in 2011. At the time, the plan recommended several changes for Glenwood, including both neighborhood-serving commercial properties and housing recommendations.

Porter said he wants to get back to the era when the church was thriving, and local businesses filled the area.

“These three blocks are the backbone of this neighborhood,” Porter said. “It should be a neighborhood-centric, commercial three-block stretch.”

He points to other business corridors in neighborhoods like Lindley Park or State Street. If done right, Glenwood could attract the same kind of energy, he said. He even mentioned getting one of artist Thomas Dambo’s trolls into the neighborhood. 

But things haven’t been smooth on the commercial front. 

Glenwood Holdings owns six storefronts in the strip across from the church. Four are currently vacant. Last summer, the city executed a search warrant on one of the vacant shops where they suspected drug trafficking. Records from the city show a person was arrested for selling marijuana and cocaine out of the location. The search resulted in several code violations, which have resulted in months of mandatory renovations to their properties. 

When asked if residents should trust Glenwood Holdings to do a good job on a new site, given the history, Porter said they are committed to creating strong commercial properties. They wouldn’t tear down the building, but would instead use the facility to create things the neighbors could support, like a daycare.

“We’re not trying to make it like a store or retail,” Porter said. “We just don’t think it should be housing.”

At this point in the process, the possibilities for the site are vast. 

The important thing, Seymour said, is that neighbors have their voices heard. Things haven’t always been easy in Glenwood. But now, the combination of Glenwood Together, the neighborhood association, and a community-based health center moving into the area has the potential to catapult the neighborhood into the future, she said. What gets built at the church site can help or hinder that growth.

“We’re this close to it working really, really well,” Seymour said. “The biggest job is just not to flub it.”