Arena; Hal Greer Boulevard gateway project; demolition of
houses and clearing of land for redevelopment by the Huntington
Housing Authority; upcoming construction of Marshall’s new
Brad D. Smith School of Business; and the introduction of
CoWorks, a new nonprofit co-working space located on the
first floor of the Chase Bank building.
Everyone in Huntington seems to have a stake in the success
of their city, including the city itself. Various city agencies
have invested time and resources into cleaning and building up
America’s Best Community
their neighborhoods. For example, in late 2018, the Huntington
Municipal Development Authority purchased the Flint Group
Pigments property on 5th Avenue, eight acres of former
warehouse and parking lot space that will be cleared and
redeveloped, spurring additional economic growth.
“When you have river, rail and highway right next to a
university, all of that can be channeled for redevelopment and
transformation,” says Williams. “The next few years are going
to be very exciting.”
A rendering of the Fairfield Innovation Corridor.
Photo by Edward Tucker Architects.
Make no little plans.
This is the mantra the city of Huntington adopted as it embarked
on the three-year journey to be named America’s Best Community
(ABC). On April 19, 2017, the city claimed the title and the $3
million grand prize for its community revitalization plan, the
Huntington Innovation Project (HIP).
The project was developed over the course of the competition
and is broken into four parts: the Fairfield Innovation Corridor;
Highlawn Area-Wide Business Plan, or H-Biz; West End-
WestEdge Factory; and Gigabit City. After the competition
ended, the teams for each of the four projects were tasked
with putting together a three-year plan with benchmarks to
be met within that time period.
“The three-year plans have kept the projects on track and
moving forward,” says Margaret Mary Layne, CEO of Layne
Consulting LLC and former Huntington city planner. “Everything
goes a little slower than you want it to, but for the type of large
transformation we’re trying to do, doing this planning part and
doing it right is important because it becomes the guide for
every piece of development moving forward.”
While some of the changes might not be visible to the public
yet, a lot of progress has been made on advancing the HIP
since 2017.
To date, the Fairfield Innovation Corridor project—a complete
revitalization of the area stretching from 8th Avenue and the
interstate and 12th Street to 28th Street in Huntington—has
secured an additional $1 million in funding and formed a
master transformation plan. This plan includes steps toward
the redevelopment of the Northcott Court public housing
project for mixed-use development; creation of a land-use
redevelopment plan for an arts district and sports/wellness
district; redevelopment of Hal Greer Boulevard into a street
with access points for the Paul Ambrose Trail for Health;
remodel and expansion of the A.D. Lewis Community Center;
and removal of blighted housing.
The H-Biz project is a plan to remediate three former industrial-
use properties on 3rd Avenue into mixed-use development
space, which could include student housing, manufacturing
expansions, retail space and a baseball stadium for Marshall
University. After the competition, the city was awarded $600,000
in Environmental Protection Agency grants for the creation of
the redevelopment plan, which is complete, and the Phase I
assessments of the properties, which are being finalized, as well
as an additional $800,000 brownfields environmental revolving
loan fund grant for hazardous substances and petroleum cleanup.
Part of the plan for revitalizing Huntington’s West End is a
remodel of the abandoned WestEdge Factory, which currently
houses Coalfield Development and its social enterprises. The
West End team is also working on a River to Rail Project, which
includes a master plan for creating a Main Street America
program for West Huntington, establishing an arts or historic
district, expanding recreation and community spaces and
supporting entrepreneurship for new West End businesses.
While three of the four HIP initiatives are focused on specific
communities, Gigabit City is a plan to implement city-wide, cost-
effective, reliable bandwidth for next-generation networks like
the Internet of Things. Team members are working on a plan to
expand broadband by consulting with professionals to create
a utility plan for laying conduit for fiber and securing poles for
fiber attachments; supporting broadband legislation at the
state level; creating a request for proposal for the design of a
potential network; and streamlining city permitting processes.
While the HIP still seems conceptual to many people, Layne is
confident Huntington is moving in the right direction.
“These multiyear projects are long-term enough that they may
go a slightly different direction 10 years down the road, but
you can’t get 10 years down the road until you build years one
through nine,” she says. “Anything worth doing is worth doing
well and right, regardless of how long it takes. Commitment
is what is going to carry us through to the finish line until we
have built America’s Best Community.”
WWW.WVEXECUTIVE.COM
WINTER 2019
85