“We don’t need more parking lots,” said Josh Murnen, secretary and general counsel of the Lucas County Land Bank. Murnen envisions a walkable, bikeable Toledo where neighborhoods flow from one into the next. He and the Land Bank work year-round to reclaim abandoned buildings in order to rejuvenate Toledo.
Murnen joined the Land Bank upon its inception in 2010, after statewide legislation gave cities the ability to reutilize land that has fallen out of use. When an abandoned property folds into tax foreclosure, the Land Bank has an opportunity to take ownership. It only claims the property if it will improve property values and quality of life in surrounding neighborhoods. “Development doesn’t necessarily happen organically,” said Murnen. “It happens with planning.”
Saving Buildings
Murnen took me on a tour of one of the Land Bank’s buildings at 2022 Adams St., a century-old former grocery on the corner of 21st Street. Although it has been abandoned for years, it is filled with potential. It has two giant warehouse rooms with extravagantly tiled ceilings. The rooms open to an enclosed patio that could be used for outdoor seating for a restaurant or a summer beer garden. Renovations would cost six-figures, Murnen estimated, but the Land Bank believes someone will see its promise. “You have to look beyond existing demographics and look for growth.”
Murnen hopes that Toledo will develop a series of mixed-use neighborhoods that flow naturally into each other. Before that can happen, however, buildings like 2022 Adams need inhabitants. “It is not a smooth connection,” said Murnen, describing the depleted space between Downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. “You can’t have a vibrant urban area without a strong core.”
Knocking Them Down
“The Land Bank only demolishes buildings that literally cannot be saved,” said Wade Kapszukiewicz, the Lucas County Treasurer and chair of the Land Bank board of directors. Kapszukiewicz speaks quickly and statistically, like someone who is very excited about having the first pick in a fantasy football draft. “We only acquire properties when there is an end-user in mind.”
The Land Bank has initiated rehabilitation of over 180 homes and 12 commercial properties, and it has torn down over 800. The Land Bank sees demolition as necessary to counter the decline in home prices. “It is about the other houses on the street that lose value through no fault of their owners,” said Kapszukiewicz.
Our Bank
I sat with the president of the Land Bank, David Mann, in the agency’s office on the fifth floor of One Government Center where seven full-time employees sit in cubicles.
Mann is baby-faced and has a politician’s haircut. He grew up in Dayton, and moved to Toledo in 2000 for college and law school. He enjoys living here and wants the Land Bank to help other people enjoy it, too.
“A neighborhood where the only people who live there do not choose to live there—that is not a neighborhood,” said Mann.
The Land Bank hopes to preserve most people’s largest investment: their home.
Near the building that Murnen took me to on Adams, the soon-to-open urban park, Uptown Green, is being constructed at Madison Ave. and 18th St. The Land Bank acquired the property, which used to be a parking lot and an old biker bar, once among Lucas County’s chronically vacant properties. The list has been as large as 3,000 addresses, a daunting number that will keep the Land Bank busy for years.
Murnen and Mann both liken the Land Bank to a new tool in a tool kit: It is a device to help Toledo that wasn’t there before, and that we never needed more than now.
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Dorian Slaybod is 28, a local attorney
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and happily living in Toledo.
