Muskingum County Secures Funding for Demolition of Dilapidated Sites

ZANESVILLE, OH – Muskingum County recently received funding to help demolish vacant and dilapidated buildings.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, Lt. Governor Jon Husted, as well as the Ohio Department of Development announced on Wednesday that this grant will help to demolish over 1,000 buildings across 9 counties.

Andy Roberts, the Executive Director of the Muskingum County Land Bank, says Muskingum County received $3.27 Million of the $67.3 Million that was dispersed in this first round of funding.

He also talked about the buildings set for demolition here in our area.

“[We’re going] To demolish a total of 25 sites throughout the city,” Roberts said. “They’re varying in degrees, some are just houses, one is an entire block down on West Main between Pine and Luck, a portion of the Mattingly’s Complex over on State St., two city water reservoirs that had been taken out of service, and a whole bunch of other different stuff.”

Roberts says this is a good thing for our area because he’s seen how one area being redeveloped can inspire more reinvestment into the community.

“We took a look back at some of the projects we had done in years past. Between Munson and Mosaic together we got a grant award of about $2.3 million,” Roberts said. “Since we’ve cleaned these properties up, there’s currently reinvestment in those 2 sites of about $90 million. So we don’t know if we’re going to be able to hit home runs like that every single time but we’re getting about a 48 X return on the grant funding we get.”

If you own or know of a house that looks dilapidated, you can contact Andy Roberts to have it added to their list of properties.