Great Planet Money episode on demolishing N. Bradford Street

[Lisa S.]

I caught the latest Planet Money episode, which followed the local residents and city finding all of the absentee owners of a block on N. Bradford Street in the city. It took them years to track down all of the owners and purchase the abandoned buildings, but they finally got rid of them all. 

Interesting to think that potentially REIs are doing some of this work in other neighborhoods by hunting down absentee owners.

https://www.npr.org/player/embed/491507799/4915589...

They mentioned in the episode that there are 7,500 vacant/abandoned buildings in the city. 

[Ray Johnson]

There's so many vacant and uninhabitable homes it makes it hard to be competitive in the REI business in the area.

The upside is the city has selected the Master Developer for the 62 Acres of the Park Heights Master Planned development, and the city officials told me they will be extending the project to 84 acres total.

There should be several avenues of opportunity through that project.