Once a magnet for crime, the former site of Wood Elementary School at Pennsylvania Avenue and 18th Street is now home to 18 families. When the school was closed in 1995, the abandoned building attracted garbage, drug dealing and gang activity. By 1998, an active neighborhood group, the Belding-Wood Neighborhood Council, was lobbying hard for development of the site, which was negatively affecting the neighborhood's quality of life.

After other developers failed to build on the site, CHDC purchased it from the school district and met with the neighborhood council, which requested completely detached single-family housing rather than more densely populated townhouses. Through a partnership with the City of Richmond, CHDC built 18 single-family homes in 1999. Of these homes, 11 were targeted for low-income families earning less than 80 percent of the Area Median Income ($35,580). The remaining homes were sold to families earning under 120 percent of the Area Median Income ($89,000).

Funding for Wood Estates was provided by the City of Richmond's Redevelopment Agency and Home Fund. Silent second mortgages were made available to qualifying buyers by the City of Richmond.