Opened in 1995, Eastway replaced the aged and rundown East End and Holloway Street elementary schools. Enclosing 78,000 square feet, Eastway was designed for 600 pupils.

While some Durham citizens objected to locating an elementary school in the high-crime area of Alston Avenue and Taylor Street, city and school officials, as well as nearby residents, saw the new school as an affirmation of the city's 1993 commitment to revitalizing the long-blighted Northeast Central Durham area. In following years, the city demolished decrepit houses on nearby Barnes Avenue and built new houses and condominiums in their place. The Durham Housing Authority also demolished the crime-plagued Few Gardens public-housing apartment complex in 2003 and began a project of townhouse and apartment construction in the former Edgemont and Morning Glory cotton-mill villages nearby.