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A community improvement corporation is highlighting a recent success story in the hopes of helping more Lucas County neighborhoods.  

In a little over a year, the Lucas County Land Bank has helped transform an empty storefront in South Toledo into two operating businesses and one home. 

Those with the group, hope the renovation, at the intersection of Aberdeen and South Detroit, will help bring attention to the services the Land Bank offers in revitalizing local communities.

"The Land Bank is a tool that can acquire foreclosed properties much more quickly than they ever could have acquired it in the past. In the past, a property that's been foreclosed on...could linger in a bureaucratic process for four or five years," Chair of the Lucas County Land Bank Board Wade Kapszukiewicz said.

Those with the Land Bank expect the corporation to acquire more than 250 vacant lots and abandoned homes by March of 2012.

The Land Bank is funded through an increase in interest penalties for delinquent tax payers.