The City of Covington is looking to sell two 100-year-old long-vacant houses to a rehabber or developer who will renovate them and return them to the housing market.
Separate requests for proposals (RFPs) were issued this week for the properties located in the Westside and Austinburg neighborhoods.
The buildings were last used as two-family homes, but the City hopes they’re renovated into owner-occupied single-family homes under an initiative whose goal is to return abandoned or vacant property accumulated by the City to productive use, City Neighborhood Services Director Ken Smith said.
Buyers can’t sit on the properties but must move quickly to renovate them, he said.
Covington is looking to separately sell 1530 Holman St., left, and 1716 Garrard St. to developers or rehabbers who will renovate them into single-family, owner-occupied homes.
“The City took ownership of these properties years ago as part of an anti-blight program, but since then the buildings have added nothing to the community – in fact, they’ve just detracted from it,” Smith said. “Rather than continue to watch the buildings deteriorate, we want to return them to the tax rolls, add vibrancy to their neighborhoods, and help meet the tremendous demand for housing in Covington.”
The properties:
-1530 Holman St. – a 2-story wood siding with four bedrooms containing 1,955 square feet on a lot that is roughly 36 feet by 87 feet.
-1716 Garrard St. – a 2½-story wood siding with four bedrooms containing 1,734 square feet on a lot that is roughly 25 feet by 100 feet.
Under the City’s new Neighborhood Development Code, both properties fall in semi-urban residential character districts.
Both RFPs can be accessed on the City’s procurement portal by clicking here. Viewers will have to create a free account to access the material.
Proposals are due to the City by 4 p.m. on Nov. 5. If you have questions or any problems opening the procurement portal, email Ken Smith at KSmith@covingtonky.gov.
The City wrote and published formal guidelines for the surplus property program in 2019 and has sold about a dozen properties since then. Earlier this summer, the City celebrated two “graduates” of the program with ribbon-cuttings on new in-fill houses built on Philadelphia Street.
The goal behind the program is simple, Smith said.
“These properties should be working for the taxpayers of Covington, not costing them money,” he said.
Information about the program can be found here.
City of Covington
