West Charlotte's efforts to overcome crime and blight will get a boost from a new project off West Boulevard near Charlotte/Douglas International Airport.

Arbor Glen Outreach Center, several years in the making, will serve residents of 19 neighborhoods in one of the city's most economically challenged areas.

Grading is under way for the 12,000-square-foot building on a nearly 1-acre parcel in Clanton Park, off Clanton Road near the emerging Arbor Glen housing development.

Since the 1970s the westside has coped with an abundance of low-income housing and high unemployment. But conditions are changing.

A 33-acre business park under way on Wilkinson Boulevard between Old Steele Creek Road and Morris Field Drive will provide more jobs for residents.

Westover Shopping Center is being redeveloped at West Boulevard and Remount Road.

A new technical high school under construction on Allegheny Street will serve the neighborhood starting next year.

And developers are launching new affordable housing projects.

In addition, the Arbor Glen complex will replace the crime-plagued Dalton Village public housing with a mixture of rental apartments for the working poor and homes that will be sold at the market rate.

That's what made the community center possible, said Jeff Bradsher, whose Bradsher Properties joined the project team about a year ago to spearhead the $1.5 million development.

He said the HOPE VI federal grant the Charlotte Housing Authority received to redevelop Dalton Village included funding for a center with one restriction - none of the money could be spent on land acquisition.

"That meant we either had to get cheap land or free land," Bradsher said. "So we partnered with the park and recreation commission. We're using their land, and they will run their programs out of the center also."

Public officials embraced the community center concept, Bradsher said, but complicated legal issues and the involvement of numerous government agencies slowed the project.

"At one time we were dealing with five or six attorneys from different organizations," he said. "We had to go before the county commissioners, before the City Council and back before the county. The project involved public money, private money and a nonprofit entity."

He said the center "was born from the passion" of Pastor Charles Mack of Progressive Baptist Church, who started an outreach program 15 years ago to provide preschool and after-school tutoring and summer programs for neighborhood children.

The Rev. Mack, who raised money from other churches and private corporate donors, said the building is the fruition of his dream to provide a wholesome atmosphere for community residents to address their concerns.

Arbor Glen Outreach Center is due to open by spring. Plans include a gymnasium with a multipurpose floor for large gatherings, a computer lab with 15 to 20 stations and classrooms with movable walls to accommodate large or small groups.

The Arbor Glen Outreach Center Board will oversee the center, which will partner with several organizations in addition to the park and recreation department. The YMCA, the Afro-American Children's Theatre and Progressive Baptist Church are expected to participate, he said.

Neighboring Concepts designed the center, and R.J. Leeper Co. is building it. BB&T is providing construction financing, and the housing authority is providing permanent financing.

"We thought about doing a groundbreaking, but we decided on a grand opening around February or March instead," Bradsher said. "We wanted people to see the finished product, to see what's happening in the neighborhood."