House Majority Leader Hugh Holliman lends support
to the restoration of former mill village

The City of Lexington has been awarded a $1 million grant from the North Carolina Department of Commerce to help revitalize part of the historic Erlanger Mill Village neighborhood.

Rep. Hugh Holliman was among the leading supporters of the project and worked with officials from Lexington and the state during the grant process. The city intends to provide at least $310,000 in matching money for the revitalization effort.

Erlanger Mill Village was built in the early 1900s to support the workforce for a textile mill that had moved to town. The mill was sold in the 1950s and much of the surrounding 260-home neighborhood has steadily declined since then. The most distressed part of the neighborhood is the 28-house Park Circle area, which has become a haven for members of at least two organized gangs.

The city plans to use the grant money to renovate dilapidated rental houses in the Park Circle area, repair some owner-occupied houses, raze some apartment buildings to make way for a park and provide home maintenance classes.

The city received the Community Revitalization Community Development Block Grant from the Division of Community Assistance in the state Department of Commerce.