City of Hinton Promotes Tina Allen to Full-Time Special Projects Manager

The City of Hinton has promoted Tina Allen from part-time Grant Manager to the full-time role of Special Projects Manager, a move aimed at strengthening the city’s ability to pursue funding, manage major redevelopment work, and guide long-term community projects.

The promotion became effective August 3, 2026. In the expanded position, Allen will oversee municipal funding efforts from application through closeout, coordinate complex development projects, and help manage the administrative work tied to upcoming infrastructure and community growth priorities.

The move also reflects a practical reality for the city. Large projects now require steady oversight, detailed reporting, and careful compliance with state and federal rules. By making the position full time, Hinton is adding capacity at a time when redevelopment projects and regional partnerships are becoming more central to the city’s economic future.

Hinton’s growth plans are tied to its historic buildings, river setting, and downtown assets.

The promotion adds full-time focus to major city projects

Allen’s new role centers on one of the most demanding parts of municipal work: turning project ideas into funded, compliant, completed public investments.

Grant-funded projects often involve more than writing an application. They require budget planning, public process, procurement rules, environmental or historic review, reporting deadlines, reimbursement requests, and final documentation. A missed step can delay a project or put funding at risk.

As Special Projects Manager, Allen will help guide that full process. Her responsibilities include:

• Managing the lifecycle of municipal grants and other funding efforts

• Coordinating community development projects with multiple partners

• Tracking state and federal compliance requirements

• Supporting project administration from planning through completion

• Helping the city build stronger funding packages for major redevelopment work

  
  

During her tenure as part-time Grant Manager, Allen helped the city secure more than $4.7 million in funding to date. That figure is central to the promotion, since it shows the direct value of focused grant work for a local government with ambitious goals and limited local resources.

Allen helped Hinton secure more than $4.7 million in funding while serving in a part-time grant management role.

The full-time position gives the city more room to pursue competitive funding while also managing active projects with closer day-to-day attention. For the City of Hinton WV, that added capacity can affect how quickly projects move, how well reporting requirements are met, and how prepared the city is when new funding opportunities open.

Her grant experience will support planning, compliance, and delivery

Allen brings experience across the grant process, from identifying funding sources to managing compliance once an award is in place. That experience matters because municipal grants often carry strict rules, especially when they involve state or federal dollars.

Funding agencies may require detailed documentation on eligible costs, bidding procedures, wage rules, procurement steps, environmental reviews, historic preservation standards, and project outcomes. Smaller communities often face the same compliance requirements as larger cities, but with fewer staff members to manage the workload.

In her part-time role, Allen worked at the point where grant administration meets local project execution. That meant balancing agency requirements with the real-world needs of city projects. Her promotion signals that Hinton expects this work to remain a core part of its development strategy.

The expanded role will also allow for more consistent coordination among city staff, outside consultants, funding agencies, property owners, regional partners, and community stakeholders. For complex projects, that consistency can reduce confusion and help keep work moving through each phase.

The role is not limited to grants alone. Special projects work often includes aligning timelines, tracking milestones, preparing documentation, and making sure project partners have the information they need. Those tasks can determine whether a promising project stays on schedule or stalls during review.

The New River Center will be a priority assignment

One of Allen’s major assignments will be the rehabilitation of the former Hinton Hardwoods Building into The New River Center. The planned redevelopment would turn the building into a mixed-use facility with market-rate apartments, restaurant space, and retail space.

The project is one of the city’s most visible redevelopment priorities. It connects several goals at once: reusing an existing building, adding housing, supporting local business activity, and increasing foot traffic in the community.

Mixed-use redevelopment can be especially important in small downtowns. Housing supports nearby restaurants and shops. Commercial spaces give entrepreneurs a place to operate. Reused buildings preserve local character while bringing property back into active use.

For Hinton, The New River Center also represents the kind of project that often requires layered funding and careful coordination. A building rehabilitation may involve construction planning, environmental review, code requirements, funding applications, public-private coordination, and long-term operating considerations.

Allen’s full-time role gives the city a dedicated manager for this type of work. Her responsibilities will likely include keeping project partners aligned, managing grant-related requirements, and helping ensure that funding and administrative steps match the project timeline.

The Hinton Hardwoods Building is central to the city’s redevelopment plans for The New River Center.

The historic passenger depot remains part of Hinton’s economic plans

Allen will also take the lead on pursuing the complex mix of financing needed to transform Hinton’s historic passenger depot into a premier boutique hotel.

That assignment is separate from The New River Center, but it shares a similar challenge. Historic redevelopment projects often need multiple funding sources, each with its own rules, timelines, and requirements. A single project may involve public funds, private investment, historic preservation considerations, infrastructure improvements, and other financing tools.

The depot project carries added significance because passenger depots often serve as civic landmarks. They connect a community to its transportation history and can create a strong sense of arrival for visitors. Reimagining such a property as a boutique hotel would place a historic asset back into active use while supporting tourism and downtown business activity.

For Hinton, the depot’s future also ties into broader interest in the New River Gorge region. Visitors looking for lodging, dining, outdoor recreation, and historic character can support local spending when communities have the facilities to welcome them.

The capital planning for a hotel conversion can be demanding. It may require feasibility work, building assessments, preservation review, construction estimates, operating plans, and investor or funding commitments. Allen’s role will be to help assemble and manage that process on behalf of the city.

The city’s decision to make the position full time is especially relevant here. Projects at this scale do not move forward through grant writing alone. They require follow-up, partner communication, document control, and steady attention to deadlines.

The passenger depot project would place a historic Hinton landmark into a new use.

Hinton will take part in regional New River Gorge coordination

Allen will represent the city as a member of the newly formed New River Gorge Towns Steering Committee. The group will bring together Gorge communities for a regional way-finding and identity effort intended to encourage economic growth across the area.

Regional coordination is a natural fit for communities near the New River Gorge. Visitors often move among towns for lodging, food, trails, river access, shopping, and historic sites. When communities coordinate information and visitor routes, they can help travelers explore more places and stay longer in the area.

Hinton’s participation gives the city a voice in how regional efforts develop. It also helps connect local redevelopment work with broader tourism and economic development goals.

The steering committee role will add another layer to Allen’s full-time responsibilities. She will not only manage local projects, but also represent Hinton in discussions with other communities facing similar opportunities and challenges.

That work may involve practical questions, such as:

• How visitors find local destinations

• How towns connect their historic and natural assets

• How regional projects can support local businesses

• How communities coordinate without losing their own identity

• How shared planning can support long-term economic growth

  
  

For Hinton, these discussions matter because major redevelopment projects do not exist in isolation. A new mixed-use center, a boutique hotel, improved visitor routes, and regional collaboration can all support one another if planned carefully.

The full-time role reflects a broader shift in local capacity

Many small cities face a common challenge. They have important projects, but limited staff time to manage the funding, paperwork, reviews, and coordination those projects require.

Hinton’s decision to expand the Grant Manager role into a full-time Special Projects Manager position addresses that challenge directly. It gives the city a dedicated role for work that often sits between departments, agencies, and outside partners.

This shift may also make the city more competitive for future funding. Grant applications often reward communities that can show readiness, clear administration, strong partnerships, and the ability to complete work. Having a full-time manager assigned to these tasks can help the city prepare stronger applications and manage awards more carefully after funds are received.

The promotion also creates a clearer point of responsibility for special projects. That can help city leaders track progress, identify delays, and keep priorities connected across different funding sources and timelines.

A simplified view of Allen’s expanded role looks like this:

Area of responsibility	What it supports
Grant development and administration	Helps the city pursue, manage, and document outside funding
Project coordination	Keeps partners, timelines, and requirements aligned
Compliance tracking	Reduces risk tied to state and federal funding rules
Redevelopment planning	Supports major projects such as The New River Center and the depot
Regional representation	Connects Hinton to shared New River Gorge economic efforts

The practical outcome is more staff focus on turning plans into completed work. That does not remove the complexity of large projects, but it gives the city a stronger structure for managing it.

Regional coordination connects Hinton’s local projects with the wider New River Gorge economy.

What residents can expect next

With Allen now serving full time, residents can expect continued attention on major redevelopment efforts, outside funding opportunities, and the administrative work needed to keep projects moving.

The New River Center and the historic passenger depot will remain among the most notable assignments. Both projects have the potential to affect housing, tourism, local business activity, and the use of historic properties. Both also require careful funding work before visible construction or renovation milestones can happen.

The regional steering committee work will add another public-facing layer to the role. As New River Gorge communities coordinate around visitor movement and shared economic goals, Hinton will have representation in those discussions through Allen’s participation.

The promotion of Tina Allen marks a clear investment in project capacity. The city is not only pursuing individual grants or isolated building projects. It is building a fuller system for managing community development, funding compliance, and regional opportunity.

For Hinton, the next phase will depend on patient, detailed work: securing funds, coordinating partners, meeting requirements, and keeping long-term projects on track. Making the Special Projects Manager role full time gives that work a dedicated home.