The county received $500,000 to accomplish this goal.
The county will use the money on two buildings – an old food processing plant on Jefferson Street in Springfield and the former Catawba school on South Persimmon Street in Catawba.
The Clark County Land Bank acquired both properties earlier this year in order to earn the grant money.
Kara Van Zant is the development manager with the Land Bank.
“Both of those structures had been sitting there for quite some time, and had some potential to be realized in the community,” Van Zant said. “And through this grant, we were able to demo those buildings and green over that property.”
The old school has been demolished and is a grass lot now. New housing will eventually be built there.
The food processing plant sits against the Mad River. The Land Bank hopes to acquire more property along the river to make parks, trails and other outdoor recreation.
“It just kind of fell into place,” Clark County Land Bank Executive Director Ethan Harris said. “There’s a lot more work to be done, and we hope that the state has more funding.”
In total, the state awarded $150 million in grants for projects across the state. 2,277 blighted and vacant structures across 42 counties were identified. These structures are in addition to the 825 projects announced in October.
You can find a full list of projects here.
