Land Bank Honored with State Award

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – The Muskingum County Land Reutilization Corporation, also known as the Land Bank, is an organization that cleans up rundown properties for redevelopment and improving the aesthetic of the neighborhoods.

Land Bank Executive Director Andy Roberts announced that his organization has received the Project of the Year award, for their work on the Mosaic Tile property, by the Ohio Land Bank Association. 

“There were 14-and-a-half acres, 26 individual structures kind of all crammed together on this site. It sat more-or-less unused for about 20 years. So when we got the property it was in a state of pretty much complete disrepair. The former owners had started illegal demolition activities on the interior of the property, which made salvaging anything on the property slim-to-none.”

The cleanup of the old industrial site and the quick reutilization of the property to suit the current needs of the community marks the purpose of why the land-banks were created. 

“The Ohio Land Bank Association is a statewide organization for land-banks in the State of Ohio,” Roberts said. “Earlier this year, they had asked for projects that we had done over the last couple of years and we turned in the Mosaic Tile project. It was a $1.85 Million request that we had gotten from the State of Ohio. We used that to clean up the site, we turned around and sold it to the county. The county then made an investment of $80-plus Million into the site for the new county jail.”

The Muskingum County Land Reutilization Corporation will officially receive the Project of the Year award during the Ohio Land Bank Association’s annual conference, which will be held later this month in Columbus.