City Looks to Convert Municipal Space into Business Condominiums to Address Debt and Ongoing Costs

It’s amazing how many situations exist that the condominium structure can be used to successfully rehabilitate developments.

The city of Lorain, Ohio, is looking to convert some of its municipal space into business condominiums and then sell them. They space, the St. Joseph Community Center is woefully underutilized – with almost 2/3 of the building vacant. By converting municipal space into business condos, they can sell part of the building (reducing outstanding loans to the state level) and generate condominium contributions to the maintenance.

Condominium Residents Fund and Build Their Own Garden

One thing that living in a condominium doesn’t really meet the needs of – green space.  Condominum at it’s heart is about higher density living (sometimes very high density), and green space requires land that could otherwise be monetized by a developer.

One of those “if I had my way” – would be to require some additional green space development, or land set aside, with the development of each condominium. Even though I love the urban environment, I’ve come to understand the power of a little green space on life. The condo I live in was specifically chosen because of a large surrounded courtyard, as well as being right beside a large public park and river.

With that in mind, it’s a great smile to read of John Zayac and Dr. Marie Simon, who leased the land beside their condominium to build a garden. If you follow the link, don’t forget to view the 9 or so pictures, they are gorgeous.

If we can use this site as an example of what dedicated condominium owners would do with some land, perhaps we can use this park to excite municipalities about the benefits of reserved green space with each new condominium development.

Green space helps with the anxiety and stress that can come from higher population densities. Unlike the lament that Kermit sings, it shouldn’t be so difficult being (creating) green.