It's one thing to compromise by being a few blocks further from your favorite coffee shop, it's another to not feel safe in your home.I would use a list service or the public property records to target 3- and 4-unit properties in neighborhoods you like.

The home is R1 zoned but there would be zero additions made to the home simply adding a kitchenette to an existing room and blocking off a hallway to the remainder of the home.

If you re-route the drain pipes and it still floods I'd probably start digging for a french drain but you really need to look and see if the drainage issue is due to a landscape feature of the property.

For example, if you buy a cheap place in a bad part of town with low rents, but then remodel it to the nicest place on the block, how much can you increase rent?  

It was all done in the name of progressivism, but the idea was to rezone these areas so that zones that were recently blocked off from elite developers could now access them.

Just east off 225, 10 blocks north of Colfax.

I want to it to be written that no trash in yard, cars on blocks, collection of junk on premises etc...

it's surrounded by other homes the same age (and all commercial) and there are duplexes on the block behind it. 

I wanted to start investing this year and I don’t want to create a road block with this.

Choose the best block you can so you attract quality tenants and if you can afford to invest in some cosmetic upgrades then all the better.