KALMAZOO (WKZO) -- The city of Kalamazoo and the Kalamazoo County Land Bank will share a 1.1-million dollar grant from the state of Michigan with the LIFT Foundation to address blight elimination and to demolish dangerous structures throughout the county.  The Land Bank intends to demolish 83 residential and commercial structures over the next year, all of which are vacant and tax-foreclosed buildings or else have been ordered to be demolished by the city's Dangerous Buildings Board.

The LIFT Foundation will also use some funds to demolish 14 buildings at New Horizon Village that had been built in 1972 with a unique construction style as a demonstration project by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that, in a news release, the Land Bank says just "did not withstand the test of time."