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GREENSBORO — Teresa Eagle and her family have lived on Portland Street in the Glenwood neighborhood for 25 years . The area has changed a lot in that time — mostly going downhill from its beginnings as an ambitious turn-of-the-century experiment in urban planning.

As textile and manufacturing jobs left the city, businesses in the area closed and houses became revolving rentals or fell into disrepair. A spike in crime gave the neighborhood a bad reputation from which it is still struggling to recover.

But in the last few years a movement to revitalize the neighborhood has seen young families moving into long-vacant houses, neighborhood improvement projects, even a small independent bookstore opening on Grove Street .

That’s why Eagle got a bit nervous when she got letters asking her to sell her house to make way for a student housing development.

The neighborhood’s proximity to UNCG makes it perfect for off-campus housing for the school’s growing student body.

“The first letter just said the developers were looking to build student housing, and they were trying to see who was interested in selling,” Eagle said. “We don’t mind students renting houses in the neighborhood. That’s been the case for years. But for them to buy up a bunch of houses and basically make a whole part of the neighborhood a student housing area ... that made us think.”

Specifically, it made them think about what they would do if their part of the neighborhood, still mostly older people without children, was suddenly dominated by college students.

Teresa, 46, and her husband George, 51, raised their 22-year-old daughter in the house and were pretty settled. Still, they thought about it.

“Then another letter came,” Eagle said. “And it was ... kind of more insistent.”

The letter, from the High Point-based Skeen Group , said there was interest from neighbors and the group was now looking to acquire seven to 10 unbroken acres. In a close neighborhood mostly built on small lots, that sounded like an awful lot of houses to Eagle.

Many neighbors in the area said they received similar letters from Skeen Group, though no one knew anyone looking to sell.

The company specializes in commercial and industrial real estate, according to its Web site.

“I think that most of the people who would want to sell their houses have done that by now,” said Elaine Martin , 60 . “If you’re still here it’s because you like the way the neighborhood is going or this is just your home and you’re going to stay here whichever way it goes.”

The third letter from Skeen Group arrived in Glenwood mailboxes just two weeks ago, saying the group would like an answer this month.

“That’s when it began to feel like, you know, this is happening no matter what,” Eagle said. “I thought it felt a little weird to be given a deadline about something like that, when I don’t know anyone who wants to sell at all. It began to feel they assumed it was going to go their way.”

Phone calls to Skeen Group weren’t returned last week.

Eagle said she and her husband did talk about what would happen if they sold the house.

The problem, she said, is that even before the housing market bottomed out, a lot of the houses in the neighborhood wouldn’t have netted enough to buy a new home in a decent neighborhood.

“The neighborhood has been improving, and I think property values will probably go up,” Eagle said. “But you still couldn’t get $100,000 for our house.”

But whether or not a student housing plan goes forward, change in the neighborhood is likely one way or another — and soon.

The Glenwood Neighborhood Plan, approved by the Greater Glenwood Neighborhood Association last year, calls for new residential and mixed-use development to help continue revitalization.

UNCG officials say they’re interested in a public/private partnership to create new off-campus student neighborhoods, though that may be years away.

Right now the school is working to house more of its 14,792 students on campus. The school plans to add 1,200 on-campus students by 2017, the first 400 by 2011.

“We would like to house a greater number of students on campus because studies show students are more likely to do better and to graduate in greater numbers when they live on campus,” said Carol Disque, UNCG’s vice chancellor for student affairs said at last month’s meeting of the school’s board of trustees. “But the reality is, we’re a landlocked school. We are going to have to begin to look off campus.”

Contact Joe Killian at 373-7023 or joe.killian@news-record.com