AJ Features Story about Tech Terrace Open House

The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal features a story highlighting the upcoming Tech Terrace Open House.

John Henry Davis, 7, right, and his sister, Harriet, 10, enjoy ice cream cones at the Ice Cream Shoppe on Thursday afternoon. The Ice Cream Shoppe is located in the TechTerrace neighborhood, along with a few other specialty stores.

Geoffrey Mcallister / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

From left, Zoey Stucker, 6, Galen Yoshinobu, 6, and Lauren Stanfield, 7, play in the rain outside of Roscoe Wilson Elementary, Thursday in Lubbock. Roscoe Wilson Elementary is one of the selling points to living in the Tech Terrace neighborhood.Thursday, April 15, 2010. (Geoffrey McAllister/Lubbock Avalanche-Journal)

This Tech Terrace home is an example of the unique styles that can be found in the upcoming Spring Home Tour-Geoffrey Mcallister / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

Tech Terrace tour to take neighborly approach


By Adam D. Young
AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
Friday, April 16, 2010


The Tech Terrace UNIT Neighborhood Association will host a home tour this month aimed at improving its image as a college-student- and family-friendly neighborhood.



Organizers for the one-square-mile neighborhood just south of Texas Tech hope to show off what they call a family atmosphere

Its magnet schools and central location in the city help attract families and prospective Lubbockites to the neighborhood, said Laura Anderson with the neighborhood association.



The association is hosting a Spring Home Tour from 1 to 4 p.m. April 24 to give people free tours of the more than 30 homes for sale in the neighborhood.


"We know not everyone coming will be actually looking to buy a home, and that's fine," Anderson said. "What we really want people to do is come to our neighborhood - see it and tell their friends about it."


The tour starts at Roscoe Wilson Elementary, 2807 25th St., where people can pick up a sheet listing houses on the tour.


To find the neighborhood, Anderson said, she recommends people remember the UNIT in the association's name is an acronym for the streets that surround it - University Avenue, 19th Street, Indiana Avenue and 34th Street.


Neighborhood Association member Mary Vines said the Spring Showcase is a chance for the neighborhood to dispel what she described as a recent perception Tech Terrace is not family friendly.


She said negative media exposure - such as reports on a Tech student who was stunned with a police Taser during the Tour de Tech Terrace bike ride and a neighborhood resident who claims she was assaulted by a Tech student at a party - doesn't give an accurate picture of the neighborhood.

Anderson said Tech Terrace is a tight-knit neighborhood where young families interact positively with college students.


"This neighborhood wouldn't be what it is if it wasn't right by Tech and didn't have college students in it," she said.


Along with its college students and families, Anderson said, Tech Terrace houses a diverse community of different ethnicities and professions ranging from Tech faculty members to medical professionals to lawyers.


"It really enables people to draw on a lot of other cultural references," she said.


Vines said the neighborhood association also is betting Tech Terrace's schools can entice families to move to the neighborhood. Both Roscoe Wilson Elementary and J.T. Hutchinson Middle School are humanities and fine arts magnet schools within the Lubbock Independent School District.


Children who live in the neighborhood are automatically accepted into the schools while other students typically are placed on a magnet school waiting list, said district spokeswoman Nancy Sharp.


Anderson said the neighborhood association also encourages Tech Terrace residents to be involved in the community through parties and such annual events as the 4th of July Lawn Mower Brigade - a group of dozens of the neighborhood's residents who march in the 4th on Broadway Parade with their push- or riding-lawn mowers.


"What we've really been trying to do is get people out meeting their neighbors, working on projects together," Anderson said.


To comment on this story:

adam.young@lubbockonline.com l 766-8725
james.ricketts@lubbockonline.com l 766-8706