Project Catalyst

1. On the initiative of JCSU President Robert Albright, Project Catalyst was founded in late 1985 in order to form a strategy to revitalize Beatties Ford Road and the Northwest Corridor. The West Charlotte Business Incubator and the Northwest Corridor Community Development Corporation (NWCCDC) were two outgrowths of Project Catalyst in the early 1990s. 
2. Ike Heard, executive director of the NWCCDC, speaks with Mike Pitchford of the NationsBank CDC in the University Village Shopping Center. Founded in 1991, the NWCCDC forms the public and private partnerships necessary to push forward projects that improve economic development and housing opportunities in the 12 Northwest Corridor neighborhoods surrounding Johnson C. Smith University.
3. University Village Shopping Center was opened in December 1995. It is the first new major retail center in the area in decades. Before this time, there were no major grocery stores within five miles, and residents had to leave the community to shop. The University Village Shopping Center is a joint project of NWCCDC, Nations Bank CDC, private investors, Wachovia, Seedco, and the City of Charlotte. The University Park Neighborhood Association was also an instrumental advocate in its development. Revco, Food Lion, a post office, and other small shops are located at the University Village Shopping Center.
4. Where old Broadway Furniture Store once stood, the Carolinas Medical Group builds Biddle Pointe Primary Care, the first major new health center in the area in the last 20 years.
5. In 1996 the first new home is constructed in Washington Heights. Years had gone by since any new homes were built in these communities.
6. As part of its Home Ownership Program, the NWCCDC rehabs homes and duplexes for first-time home buyers. It also buys and rehabs apartments with no rental increase. These projects have been funded by the banking industry, private foundations, and the City of Charlotte.

Photographs by Gwendolyn Jackson, Northwest Corridor Community Development Corp.