UPPER PENINSULA, Mich. (WLUC) – Governor Whitmer has awarded more than $70 million in grants to create housing opportunities and strengthen communities across the state.
An abandoned nursing home in Ironwood is one of the many things that will soon be getting a facelift this spring. Like the nursing home, a few other locations across the U.P. will receive renovations thanks to Governor Whitmer’s awarding $72.5 million in blight elimination funds. Gogebic County Treasurer Lisa Hewitt said the county’s Land Bank has received money from this fund since last year.
“In this last trench of funds round four we received three million dollars in total with rounds one through four we have received 4.1 million dollars,” Hewitt said.
Hewitt said the money is going to cover 15 different properties that will hopefully grow the area’s population.
“Covering the city of Ironwood, the city of Wakefield, the city of Bessemer, we did a big project in Ironwood Township and that was an exciting project where we demoed about seven trailer park properties,” Hewitt said.
She also said once these types of projects are completed there are going be more opportunities and resources to the community.
“For the longest time properties within the counties have sat vacant and blighted and there hasn’t been money in our budgets and local government budgets to address these properties so with this funding we now have the opportunity to address the blighted properties,” Hewitt said.
Two more U.P. counties have also just received blight elimination grants. The Marquette County Land Bank Authority is getting up to $637,000 to tear down the old National Mine School. Once the building is demolished, Tilden Township plans to prepare the site for housing development by creating six buildable lots.
The Ontonagon County Land Bank Authority is getting up to $981,000 to demolish and clean up two blighted apartment buildings in White Pine. The county hopes the property can then be used for housing.
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