Greensboro site lease draws outrage over unused space and Helene response

The former American Hebrew Academy campus off Hobbs Road in Greensboro has become a symbol of federal spending priorities: nearly $50 million in lease money went to a 100-acre property with more than two dozen buildings, yet it never took in the migrant children it was designed to house, and later served FEMA staff as western North Carolina struggled after Hurricane Helene.

Federal records list a $50.8 million direct lease award for 103 Daat Way, with the five-year deal beginning June 9, 2022. The lease was tied to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of Refugee Resettlement, and it was meant to accommodate as many as 800 boys and girls ages 13 to 17. American Hebrew Academy, the campus owner, had closed the school in 2019 after financial struggles, leaving behind a large site with an athletic center that city leaders described as vacant for years.

The children never came. HHS scaled back the operation, and after Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina in late September 2024, the site shifted from HHS to FEMA in October. FEMA used the campus for staff training and processing connected to disaster recovery, and told WFMY News 2 in early 2025 that it expected to finish final training sessions by Jan. 31 and return the facility to HHS as early as Feb. 1.

That sequence fueled criticism in Guilford County and beyond. Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan had said the property could be used to shelter Helene victims or as a staging area for relief, but city officials later clarified that Greensboro had no oversight of how the federal government used the site. Nearby resident Donna Steele said she was glad the building would finally be put to use.

The political stakes widened as federal aid lagged behind the scale of the storm’s damage. By July 2025, North Carolina officials said Washington had paid only 6% of the estimated cost of Helene recovery, a figure that sharpened complaints that FEMA had money to lease and staff a Greensboro campus but not enough to move quickly for mountain communities still rebuilding.

The academy later said in February 2026 that it had not been contacted by any federal agency about an ICE detention-center plan and that HHS had issued a lease termination notice effective April 1, 2025. For Guilford County, the question now is whether the Greensboro property remains a paid federal asset that was overpromised and underused, or a case study in how recovery decisions can lose public trust before the work is done.