In the summer of 2018 members of the Winston-Salem City Council, other city leaders, business owners and community members came together to discuss the future of East Winston and what has become known as the East End Masterplan. The purpose of the master plan was to set guidelines for future developers and investors in East Winston.
When discussing the plans that summer, former city council member and current president and publisher of The Chronicle, Derwin Montgomery, said, “You’ve seen master plans done, you’ve seen legacy plans done. The difference about this plan is it really is a plan that has action behind it. … This is a plan to help guide development, but it’s a plan to help guide development with the people who live and work in this community in mind on the part of how development happens.”
Just two years later United Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church (UMMBC) started planning an affordable housing project on property they owned in the heart of East Winston. And just two years after that, in 2022 UMMBC officially broke ground on the project, which is known today as Metropolitan Village and is essentially the first phase of the East End Masterplan…