[FONT=Verdana]Kalamazoo[/FONT][FONT=Verdana] city officials are hoping to exercise some election-year leverage to persuade state leaders to cough up more money for the stalled Performance Paper demolition and redevelopment project. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]The last building on the 30-acre site off Alcott Street stands in the way of a city plan to redevelop the larger corridor south of downtown Kalamazoo for mixed-used development. According to Jerome Kisscorni, city economic development corporation director, the state has already spent about $3 million to remediate the site that had been home to Kalamazoo papermaking operations for a century. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]The complex was abandoned in 1997, leaving more than 300,000 square feet of deteriorating buildings on land considered valuable in a city that lacks open space for new development. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]When the former landowner went bankrupt, the site became one of about 160 in southwest Michigan vying for Michigan Department of Environmental Quality clean-up funds. Kalamazoo's Brownfield Redevelopment Authority acquired ownership of the last piece of the property after the state took title as a result of unpaid taxes. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]City officials had expected the last building -- a five-story powerhouse -- to be demolished this spring after a 170-foot smokestack was felled in March of 2005. But Kisscorni told the city Brownfield Redevelopment Authority Board on Thursday that the MDEQ has no more money allocated for the Performance Paper project. Kisscorni estimated it will take an additional $2.2-$3 million to raze and grade the site. [/FONT]
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