TOLEDO, Ohio —
The city of Toledo has invested $835,000 to go toward old and vacant buildings in town as a part of the Vibrancy Initiative project.
City officials teamed up with private entities and are working on revitalizing a total of 18 different buildings around Toledo. The $835,000 comes from the city's general fund.
Brandon Sehlhorst, city of Toledo Director of Economic Development, said this funding will help these businesses that are sometimes unable to receive funding from the state and federal level due to their size.
"For smaller projects, mainly in our neighborhood business districts, a lot of times they don't qualify, because they're not big enough for those incentives," Sehlhorst said. "One of the reasons why we stood up for Vibrancy Initiative is to provide the resources that are needed to redevelop buildings like these all throughout the city."
While the city will allocate different amounts of this fund to each of the buildings, the entities will match city funds by a certain percentage, however, entities are willing to spend more, leveraging to over $21.6 million dollars, aside from the $835,000 to be spent on the projects in total.
There will be seven new business commitments and 11 existing businesses will be enhanced, adding up to 132,968 square feet of new leasable space.
The projects will be split up into two different programs.
Program one, known as the Facade Improvement Grant Program, will make improvements to the following addresses: 2132 Broadway, 113 Main, 719 Jefferson, 2112 Sylvan, 410 Adams, 1001 Brown, 534 Segur, and 1502 Broadway.
The second program, known as the White Box Grant Program, will make improvements to the following addresses: 719 Jefferson, 317 N Superior, 325 N Superior, 132 N Summit, 615 1st, 1001 Brown, 33 N Huron, and 1017 N Summit.
The city hopes that this project will create more jobs, reduce the number of abandoned properties, and improve older structures.
Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz said this will also bring life into these historic buildings.
"We need to invest in neighborhoods," Kapszukiewicz said. "And when we invest in neighborhoods, then the citizens who live in the neighborhoods will feel the momentum that so many people feel when they visit downtown."
Since its start in 2021, the Vibrancy Initiative project has created over 150 private sector jobs and has leveraged $100 million worth of private sector investments.