City council members approved a recommendation on Monday from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission to designate a local church as a historic landmark.
Parkwood Avenue Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, located at 1017 Parkwood Avenue in the city’s District 1, has played a significant role in the Civil Rights Movement in Villa Heights, an early working-class suburb neighborhood on the eastern ridge of the Little Sugar Creek Valley, according to the county’s historic landmarks commission.
“Villa Heights developed more as a blue-collar suburb rather than an elite suburb like Dilworth,” Tom Hanchett, a community historian, told QCity Metro.
Hanchett says the area served as a neighborhood for many Black residents forced to leave the Brooklyn neighborhood when it was destroyed to be redeveloped during the 1960s.Â
The church opened in January 1929 and remains one of the most architecturally significant church buildings in the Villa Heights neighborhood. The building was designed by Louis Asbury, Sr., the first North Carolinian to belong to the American Institute of Architects.Â
An ordinance — effective April 22, 2024 — designating the Parkwood Avenue Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church as a historic landmark was unanimously approved.
