A house gets its ‘before’ picture

Ingham County Land Bank gives 530 Pacific Ave. a second chance

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(For the next several months,Lawrence Cosentino will follow the progress of one house beingrenovated for sale by the Ingham County Land Bank. This is the first inan occasional series.)

Two Bibles and a bottle of Bud Light rested on the pianoat tax-foreclosed 530 Pacific Ave., next to a heart-shaped sign on theliving room wall.

“Whatsoever lot God gives you in life … build on it,” the sign read.

The prescient sign made Chris Kolbe, the Ingham CountyLand Bank’s new marketing man, do a double-take when he visited thehouse last week. 

“Honestly, I did not stage that,” he said.

Sure enough, the leaky, abandoned house on Lansing’ssouth side is slated for a $50,000 renovation in the next three to fourmonths. The Land Bank bought the two-story 1925 house across from theold John Bean factory in July for $6,371 in back taxes owed by theabsent owner.

Despite some cheerful kid art scrawled on the walls, the place looked well shredded.

“I can see walls coming out,” Kolbe said. “It’s the original plaster and it’s getting pretty bad.”

Kolbe said 530 Pacific is about “middle of the road”among some 40 Land Bank fix-up projects now under way all over Lansing.“We’ve had better, and we’ve had a lot worse,” he shrugged.

The spate of rehabs makes up the prettier half of atwo-pronged push to blunt the blighting tide of foreclosure andabandonment. The bad-cop half is a late-fall round of 30 demolitions —15 in November and 15 in December — targeting houses the Land Bankdeems incorrigible.

Last week, Kolbe picked his way through the books, toys,broken lamps and heaps of clothes strewn throughout 530 Pacific, fromfront porch to back door.

He was unfazed by the torn wallpaper, crumbling walls andcollapsed drop ceilings. He didn’t blink at the rusting hulk of afurnace or the huge hole in the wall behind the kitchen sink. 

The plucky area just south of I-496, anchored by an oldfactory that is hosting a dozens of new businesses, makes 530 Pacifican ideal Land Bank project.

 “This househas good bones,” Kolbe said. “The only structural support it needs ismaybe under the porch. Those floors are all yellow pine, and theyrefinish pretty nice. Right now people like wood floors.”

Meanwhile, at the Land Bank’s office just south of OldTown, in a vault-like vestibule of giant file cabinets, 530 Pacific isgrowing into a thick folder of inspection checklists, contracts,subcontracts, financial records and other documents. The Land Bank ownsabout 800 properties, of which about 100 are undergoing demolition orrehabbing.

The housing market has been full of distractions anddisruptions in recent years, but the “middle of the road” project onPacific Avenue lies at the heart of the Land Bank’s mission — tofast-track tax-reverted property to productive use and shore upplunging property values in key neighborhoods.

It hasn’t been easy to stick to that mission. 

Soon after the Land Bank pitched its tent in 2005, themortgage foreclosure avalanche crashed down on the market. A timely $18million infusion of federal stimulus money helped the Land Bank ramp upoperations and handle mortgage foreclosed houses as well as taxforeclosures, but the stimulus will be spent by the end of next year.

The current wave of rehabs and demolitions is partlyfunded by that federal money. Barring a freak housing boom, EricSchertzing, Ingham County treasurer and chairman of the board of theLand Bank, is pretty sure he won’t be rehabbing 40 houses this timenext year.

“We have a challenge,” Schertzing declared. “What are wegoing to do in 2013 and 2014, when we will still have some significantissues? We need to come up with that answer as a community — the city,the county, [the State of Michigan], whoever else is in the mix.”

Fortunately, the worst of the crisis seems to be easing.Tax foreclosures have “leveled off” at 250 to 300 a year in Lansing,according to Schertzing, while mortgage foreclosures have “noticeablydeclined.” In 2011, about 1,700 to 1,800 homes went through mortgageforeclosure in Ingham County, of which 1,200 to 1,300 were in Lansing.Schertzing said that’s a 20 percent drop from 2010.

Prospects are also looking better at the sales end of thehousing pipeline. The Land Bank closed sales on 30 of its rehabbedhouses so far this year, compared to 21 in 2010, and hit the $100,000mark on a few of the newest rehab jobs.

“That begins to reset the entire market,” Schertzing said.

In the next three to four months, 530Pacific will get a standard Land Bank makeover, including gutted andrebuilt kitchen and bathrooms, energy efficient windows, a new roof andfurnace, new plumbing, refinished floors and new wiring.

An energy audit, followed by huddles with contractors,will get the project under way. However, as of last week, there werestill heaps of stuff strewn through the house. About 20 coats werehanging in the front closet. A massive dining room table lay on itsedge. Shelves and boxes were crammed with a seemingly random mix ofauthors, from Steve Martin to Charles Dickens to Sen. John McCain.

Instead of tossing everything into a Dumpster, Schertzingwould like to see the Land Bank link up with area volunteers who arewilling to pick through the flotsam at 530 Pacific and other Land Bankprojects. With so many balls in the air, his overworked staff doesn’thave time to sift through everything.

“We’d especially like to find a home for the piano,” Kolbe said.


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