Surveyors for Commonwealth Redevelopment Project

A news clip from WSLS-TV in Roanoke shows surveyors working on Roanoke’s Commonwealth Redevelopment Project in January 1957. The script which accompanied this footage is as follows:

Very soon now, over a million dollars worth of land will go on sale in the Commonwealth Redevelopment Project.

Meanwhile, engineers and survey crews today began marking off the 83 acres in the Northeast section into commercial and residential lots. According to the executive secretary of the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority, there will be 108 lots up for sale some early next month. R.R. Henley says promotional advertising will be used to help speed the sale of the lots along. Negro families were uprooted from this area that was formerly mostly slums. Now it’s hoped attractive homes and apartments can be built in the area as well as industrial concerns.