Last July, with one blighted and one run-down property at his back, Lucas County Treasurer and Land Bank Chairman Wade Kapszukiewicz announced the land bank’s plan to demolish or renovate 1,500 homes in the following 1,500 days.

One year later, at a Wednesday news conference in front of the same two properties, Mr. Kapszukiewicz stood before one demolished and one renovated home to report that the project is six months and 185 properties ahead of schedule.

The land bank has demolished 476 homes and renovated 74 over the past year, with the goal of slowing the decline of property values.

If successful, the 1,500 in 1,500 plan will eliminate the vast majority of known blighted properties in the city.

“The goal is ambitious… but it is one of the best chances we have to right the trajectory of our neighborhoods,” Mr. Kapszukiewicz said. “I think it is worth noting whenever a public organization is under budget and ahead of schedule. We are very proud that we are.”

While the land bank is on track to surpass its 1,500 property target, it is roughly 25 percent behind schedule to achieve its goal for 400 of those transformations to be renovations. To be on track to complete 400 renovations by the end of the 1,500 days, the land bank would need to finish about 23 more this year.

But this shortfall is largely a product of the land bank’s counting method, which only includes completed projects in its tally, said President David Mann. Once the land bank sells a home to a private owner, the details of and timetable for that renovation are in the owner’s hand.

In addition to the 74 completed renovations, 53 are currently under way.

“We’re not concerned,” Mr. Mann told The Blade. “Over time, as we get toward the end, I think those numbers will catch themselves up, and I think we’ll be right where we thought we would be, if not ahead.”

The 1,500 in 1,500 plan was made possible by a nearly $14 million federal grant the land bank received last July from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Hardest Hit Fund. A few months later, the same fund contributed an additional $1.9 million.

Over the past year, the land bank spent $4.8 million in federal grant money on demolition and renovation projects.

Mr. Mann said the land bank has seen anecdotal evidence of a stabilizing housing market but has not yet compared current property values to the benchmark prices it recorded before beginning the initiative.

“You’ve got to take some time,” he said. “The real estate market doesn’t happen overnight. It could take years to see that, but that’s the data we’re going to look at. We’re just not there yet.”

Mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson, who is on the land bank board, also stopped at the news conference to offer some brief remarks, in which she stressed that credit for the year’s success is due not just to the land bank staff but to people all across Toledo. Mr. Kapszukiewicz is one of the candidates challenging Ms. Hicks-Hudson for her mayoral job in the Sept. 12 primary.

“What makes our community strong and great is that it is a partnership,” Ms. Hicks-Hudson said at the event. “It’s really important that we take time to recognize that this is an ambitious goal, but it’s a doable goal.”

Contact Jacob Stern at jstern@theblade.com or 419-724-6050.

First Published July 27, 2017, 4:00 a.m.