A judge signed an order yesterday giving one acre of the East End to the Charleston Area Alliance for 360-thousand dollars. The cracked, weed laden parking lot and vacant building sitting along Washington Street and Leon Sullivan Way will be transformed into a lush learning environment.

"It just looks like an old parking lot," said Roberta Roberts of Madison, "I think it would be really pretty to have a nice park sitting right there for people to be able to get out and enjoy."

Getting rid of the overgrown parking lot has been 10 years in the making but the Charleston Area Alliance just got that building. The Charleston Area Alliance obtained the property through condemnation powers of the Charleston Urban Renewal Authority. They're going to knock it down and replace it with indigenous plants and trees to welcome people to the Capitol City.

"We want it to tell a story of the geographic development of the greater Kanawha Valley," said Susie Salisbury of the Charleston Area Alliance.

The story will be told by replicating the landscape surrounding the Charleston onto the street level and that includes an irrigation system similar to the Elk and Kanawha Rivers. The people listening to the story of great outdoors will be children visiting the Clay Center.

"You have to show 'em as many worms and rocks ad you can cause when they get older like me, they don't have time to look at earthworms, and rocks, and trees," said Charlestonian Betty Jo Han of the Green Space Project, "They're too busy running and chasing their lives."

Adults will be free to enjoy the green space too. The 2.1 million dollar project to wipe away the concrete jungle in exchange for a little piece of the country could be complete next year. Some fund-raising must still be done to insure the green space will be maintained.