When The Shovels Hit The Ground: Wheeling’s HOPE VI Promise Becomes Real

In August 1999, Wheeling’s HOPE VI story arrived as a headline of money, promise, and federal confidence: more than $20 million in grants and loans, including a $17.124 million HOPE VI award, to remake distressed public housing and connect that work to broader economic development.

But nearly two years later, on May 17, 2001, the story changed shape.

It moved from announcement to ceremony.

Eleven ceremonial shovels went into the ground at the former Wheeling Hospital and Calico Works site in North Wheeling. Gov. Bob Wise was there. Wheeling Housing Authority leaders were there. Local officials were there. A large ceremonial check was there. And so was the public language of renewal: rebirth, partnership, self-sufficiency, mixed-income housing, and community.

This was the moment Wheeling’s HOPE VI plan stopped being only a plan.

It became dirt, speeches, photographs, timelines, and expectations.

A Ceremony Of “Rebirth”

The Intelligencer described the groundbreaking as a symbolic “rebirth” of the North Wheeling neighborhood.

That word matters.

By 2001, HOPE VI had become one of the country’s most ambitious and controversial public housing programs. Nationally, it promised to replace distressed public housing with new mixed-income communities. Locally, Wheeling’s version of that federal vision would touch North Wheeling, Grandview Manor, Lincoln Homes, and East Wheeling.

The 2001 groundbreaking focused on Phase I: a 62-unit North Wheeling HOPE VI site.

But even at the ceremony, officials made clear that North Wheeling was only the beginning. Chip West, chairman of the Wheeling Housing Authority’s board of directors, said other neighborhoods would follow. The city’s HOPE VI project was not a single construction site. It was a multi-neighborhood redevelopment plan with Grandview Manor, Lincoln Homes, and East Wheeling all inside its arc.

The Foundation has spent considerable time examining housing in Wheeling because housing is never just housing. Housing determines who has stability, where children grow up, what neighborhoods survive, what buildings disappear, and which communities are asked to trust another promise.

This groundbreaking was one of those promises.

“A Hand Up, Not A Hand Out”

The project’s slogan, according to the article, was “A hand up, not a hand out.”

That phrase captures the HOPE VI language of the era. The program was not presented merely as construction. It was presented as a transformation of people, families, neighborhoods, and opportunity.

Gov. Wise made that point directly. He said the project was not only about new structures, but also about “education, renewal and after-school programs” for youth. “You can build all the structures you want,” he said, “but it’s a community helping each other out that makes a community.”

That is an important statement to preserve.

At its best, the HOPE VI vision recognized something true: housing policy cannot be separated from education, social services, youth development, employment, health, transportation, and family stability. A better building alone does not repair generations of concentrated poverty or neighborhood disinvestment.

But that same phrase, “A hand up, not a hand out,” also deserves careful reading.

It was uplifting language. It was also language shaped by the welfare-reform politics of the late 1990s and early 2000s, when public policy often framed assistance through self-sufficiency, responsibility, and transition. For families living in public housing, that language could feel hopeful, but it could also carry judgment.

The Foundation’s role is not to flatten that complexity. It is to hold it.

Wheeling As West Virginia’s Only HOPE VI Site

Gov. Wise emphasized that Wheeling was West Virginia’s only HOPE VI site.

That made this project bigger than the city itself. Wheeling was not simply participating in a national program. It was carrying the state’s only example of that program.

Wise said people with “a vision and a dream” had made the project happen. He connected Wheeling’s effort to his broader housing policy for West Virginia and said Wheeling was “leading the pack.”

That is a remarkable position for the city to occupy.

Wheeling, a city often described through decline, population loss, industrial contraction, aging buildings, and urban struggle, was suddenly being held up as a leader in housing redevelopment. The same front page that covered the HOPE VI ceremony also carried a major story about Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel reporting a $58 million net loss. That pairing is telling. On one side of the page, an old industrial economy was staggering. On the other, a new federal housing and redevelopment strategy was being celebrated as renewal.

That is the Wheeling context.

HOPE VI arrived not in a vacuum, but in a city trying to imagine what came after industrial decline.

The Check And The New Development Machine

One of the most revealing details in the article is the presentation of a $1 million contribution from the West Virginia Housing Development Fund.

Randy Marshall, with the West Virginia Housing Development Fund, and Gov. Wise presented the check to Lisa Zukoff, executive director of the Wheeling Housing Authority. But the article notes that the money went to Wheeling Neighborhood Ventures, a nonprofit corporation under the direction of the housing authority.

That detail is easy to pass over. It should not be.

By this point, Wheeling’s housing redevelopment work was not only moving through the traditional public housing authority structure. It was also moving through an affiliated nonprofit development arm. That kind of structure would become increasingly important in American public housing redevelopment, as housing authorities used nonprofit partners, mixed-finance models, tax credits, private lenders, and public-private tools to carry out projects that older housing authority models could not easily execute alone.

In Wheeling, Wheeling Neighborhood Ventures became part of the machinery of implementation.

For readers following our broader housing series, this matters because it connects directly to the later question of Wheeling’s two-part housing structure: the public mission of the Housing Authority and the development role of Wheeling Neighborhood Ventures. HOPE VI was one of the spaces where that relationship became visible.

The ceremonial check was not only a photo opportunity. It was a clue.

North Wheeling’s Plan

The North Wheeling site was planned for 62 units.

According to the article, 23 of those units were to be single-family homes sold to owners. Twenty of those homes would use incentives for families who normally would not be able to afford a home, while three would be sold at market value. The remaining 39 units would be rentals for low- to moderate-income families.

That design reflected the HOPE VI philosophy: mixed-income, mixed-tenure, and less visibly “project-like” than older public housing developments.

The article described the future community as one that would offer residents “housing of their choice.” Construction was expected through a partnership between the Wheeling Housing Authority, the Ohio Valley Construction Employers Council Inc., and local building and construction trades.

The target was ambitious. The article reported that construction on the North Wheeling homes could be complete as early as 2002.

Here we can see the HOPE VI dream in concrete terms: some rental housing, some homeownership, some market-value sales, some subsidies, some partnership with labor and construction groups, and a broader effort to change the physical and social identity of the neighborhood.

It was no longer only about replacing units. It was about remaking the image and composition of the neighborhood itself.

Sacred Heart And The Community Center Promise

The article also included another important announcement: the former Sacred Heart Church was being renovated to become the Sacred Heart Community Center.

Lisa Zukoff said the sanctuary would be renovated over the summer and opened to the community that fall.

This is a vital piece of the story because it shows HOPE VI trying to root itself in more than housing units. A community center suggested gathering, programming, youth activity, support services, and neighborhood identity. It was a physical expression of the same larger promise Gov. Wise described: housing plus education, after-school programs, and renewal.

For the Foundation, this is exactly the kind of detail that matters.

A housing project is measured not only by the number of units built, but by the social world it imagines around those units.

Where do children go after school?

Where do residents gather?

Where does the neighborhood hold memory?

Where does a new development create belonging rather than merely new addresses?

The Sacred Heart Community Center was part of that answer.

The Complicated Road To Support

The article was not pure celebration. It acknowledged that the project “wasn’t without its moments.”

Changes to the original plan had caused members of the North Wheeling community to turn against the proposal at one point. According to Zukoff, working with that group and getting its members involved in planning changed perceptions and allowed HOPE VI to move forward stronger and with community support.

That is one of the most important passages in the article.

It reminds us that redevelopment is never simply designed from above and received with gratitude below. Communities respond. They resist. They question. They worry about what will be built, who will live there, what will be lost, how traffic will change, whether promises will be kept, and whether “renewal” will benefit existing residents or someone else.

The article suggests that conflict was resolved through involvement and planning. That may be true. It also invites more research.

Who opposed the original plan?

What were their concerns?

How did the plan change?

Which residents were included?

Which residents were displaced?

Which residents returned?

How did public housing residents themselves describe the process?

Those are not hostile questions. They are historical questions.

And they are exactly the kind of questions our Foundation exists to ask.

That tension had been visible as early as October 1999, when North Wheeling residents raised concerns about whether HOPE VI would strengthen their neighborhood or simply move the burdens of Grandview Manor into a new location.

Grandview Manor Was Next

Although North Wheeling had received most of the attention by May 2001, the article made clear that Grandview Manor remained central to the larger HOPE VI plan.

A second phase at Grandview Manor could begin with demolition of the existing structures as early as that fall. Construction on an 85-unit replacement site could begin as early as fall 2002. The article noted that the units would consist of single- and multi-family dwellings.

Unlike North Wheeling, the Grandview site would have no row houses. The homes were to be built to fit the immediate neighborhood.

That detail is also important.

HOPE VI was not just about replacing distressed housing with newer housing. It was about changing design. Older public housing often looked and felt visibly separate from surrounding neighborhoods. HOPE VI tried to erase that distinction by creating developments that blended into local street patterns and architectural expectations.

That design philosophy could be powerful. It could also hide the deeper policy question: if public housing becomes less visible, does public responsibility become less visible too?

Grandview Manor, long associated with public housing in Wheeling, was being prepared for a dramatic transformation. The physical structures would come down. The replacement would look different. The neighborhood would be asked to accept a new kind of public housing presence, one less concentrated and more integrated into the built environment.

The Final Phase: East Wheeling

The article ends its HOPE VI description by pointing toward East Wheeling.

The final phase, it said, would move HOPE VI “off the hill and into the heart of East Wheeling.” The Housing Authority was working with the city to identify sites where demolition had already occurred in order to maximize resources.

For the Foundation, that line hits close to home.

East Wheeling is not just geography. It is one of the historic centers of Black life in Wheeling. It is tied to churches, schools, families, businesses, migration, displacement, memory, struggle, pride, and loss. It is a neighborhood that has carried far more history than the city has always chosen to preserve.

So when the article says HOPE VI would move into “the heart of East Wheeling,” we have to read that with care.

Was this investment?

Was it renewal?

Was it repair?

Was it another phase of urban reshaping in a neighborhood that had already endured decades of disruption?

The answer may be yes to more than one of those questions.

That is why this series matters.

HOPE VI was a federal program, but in Wheeling it moved through very local ground. It touched neighborhoods where Black families had lived, worshiped, attended school, worked, and built community across generations.

The People Behind The Ceremony

The article named several public figures and institutions: Gov. Bob Wise, Lisa Zukoff, Chip West, Randy Marshall, Mayor Nick Sparachane, U.S. Rep. Alan Mollohan, Sen. Robert Byrd, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the Wheeling Housing Authority, Wheeling Neighborhood Ventures, the West Virginia Housing Development Fund, and local construction partners.

But a ceremony also has unnamed people.

Residents. Former residents. Neighbors. Children. Elders. Workers. Families waiting to see whether the promise would reach them.

One of the challenges of public housing history is that official records often preserve the names of policymakers and institutions more readily than the names of the people most affected. Newspaper articles capture the shovels, checks, officials, and quotes. They do not always capture the kitchen-table conversations, the anxiety of relocation, the hope of a better unit, the worry about return, or the feeling of watching a familiar place be demolished.

Our work must leave room for those voices.

From Announcement To Groundbreaking

The 1999 article announced Wheeling’s entrance into the HOPE VI era. The 2001 article shows the city stepping into implementation.

In 1999, the story was about winning the grant.

In 2001, the story was about making the grant visible.

The shift matters. Federal money can be abstract. Groundbreaking ceremonies are not. They turn policy into performance. They reassure the public that something is happening.

They place officials beside residents, checks beside shovels, and promises beside dirt.

But ceremonies are beginnings, not conclusions.

A groundbreaking tells us what a community hoped would happen. It does not tell us what ultimately happened. That is the work of the rest of the series.

Why This Matters To The Foundation

For the Eugene and Beverly Stradwick Heritage Foundation, the HOPE VI story belongs inside a longer arc of Wheeling history.

It connects to the city’s long struggle over housing conditions for Black and low-income residents. It connects to public housing, urban renewal, neighborhood identity, and redevelopment. It connects to East Wheeling and North Wheeling. It connects to the question of whether government programs heal past harm or simply rename it.

It also connects to memory.

When public housing is demolished, the buildings are not the only things that disappear.

The stories inside them can disappear too. The networks, the childhoods, the hardships, the friendships, the stigma, the pride, the survival, the ordinary life - all of it can be lost if no one preserves it.

That is why this 2001 groundbreaking deserves a place in the Foundation’s archive.

It was a day of optimism. It was a day of ceremony. It was a day when Wheeling leaders believed they were building a different future.

Now, with time and records in hand, we can ask the deeper question:

What future did HOPE VI actually build?

-T

Historical Terminology Note

This article includes historical terms such as “colored” and “Negro” when quoting original sources or identifying organizations as they were known at the time. These terms reflect the language and racial conditions of their era; their inclusion is not an endorsement of their use today.

In our own narrative, we use Black and African American, as appropriate. We preserve historical wording to document the past faithfully while honoring the dignity, humanity, and experiences of the people whose stories we share.

Source Notes

• The Intelligencer, “Governor Attends HOPE VI Ceremony,” May 18, 2001, front page.

• The Intelligencer, “Governor Attends HOPE IV Groundbreaking Ceremony,” continuation, May 18, 2001, p. 5. The continuation headline appears to use “HOPE IV,” but the article content concerns Wheeling’s HOPE VI project.

• Prior Foundation drafting on Wheeling’s 1999 HOPE VI award announcement and national HOPE VI background.