MANSFIELD – The Richland County Land Bank celebrated its fifth anniversary Thursday evening in a building it helped transform.

Officially titled the Richland County Land Reutilization Corporation, the organization celebrated at one of its former properties, Theatre 166, a new building the Renaissance Theatre has transformed in the past two years.

Throughout the evening, the crowd heard from Jeff Parton, vice chairman for the land bank, who highlighted the organization’s successes, and four individuals who have worked with the land bank to clean up properties throughout Richland County.

Speakers included the first person to buy a property from the Richland County Land Bank; a local businessman with a vision for a former gas station; a developer who uprooted his business to move from Alaska to Ohio; and the chief executive officer for the Renaissance Theatre, which recently made a significant investment in a building now called Theatre 166.

“We wanted to share some of our successes and show what a land bank can really do for a community,” said Bart Hamilton, Richland County Land Bank president and also the county treasurer.

Since it was started in 2013, the land bank has worked to return properties to productive use, clean up blight and provide better quality of life to residents of Richland County. It’s done so by demolishing more than 310 structures, transferring more than 670 parcels of land to new owners and selling about 50 properties that have gone through some sort of rehabilitation process.

“It’s been a lot of work, so this needed to be done – we needed to celebrate the victory of what we accomplished in five years,” said Amy Hamrick, land bank manager

Staging the celebration in Theatre 166, she continued to say, was a “no brainer.”

“What they’ve done with the building and how they took it from point A to point B was amazing,” Hamrick said. “We got this building, and it was horrendous. It was challenging to get people to see that this could be truly amazing.”

The Renaissance purchased the 15,000 square-foot building from the land bank for $89 from in December 2016. It has since transformed the space into a gathering place for actors, artists, musicians, and art advocates. Further plans include a state-of-the-art recording studio and space on the second floor for classrooms in partnership with Pioneer Performing Arts.

Theatre 166 is the first piece of the “Imagination District,” which will be continued via partnership with the Little Buckeye Children’s Museum.

Mike Miller, the chief executive officer for the Renaissance Theatre said he’s already fielding questions about “what’s next?” and how the district could be connected to the Brickyard, a vision he also shares. For now, the partnership is focused on the buildings along Park Avenue, Theatre 166 and an adjacent building that Little Buckeye Children’s Museum hopes to acquire within a month.

Miller predicts Theatre 166 will be entirely renovated within a year and a half, while the Little Buckeye Children’s Museum will move into its potential new space at a later time.

Laurie Wheeler also shared her experience as the first person to purchase a land bank property. She and her husband, Michael, bought a house on Rowland Avenue and completely renovated it.

“It’s still coming along,” she said with a laugh.

And other speakers like developer William Barber and business owner Jamie Shiro have been able to find land bank properties that fit their needs.

Barber moved his business from Alaska to Ohio after discovering opportunities with the Richland County Land Bank.

Hamilton thanked these individuals for their efforts.

“We’ve accomplished a lot in five years, but there’s still a lot more to do,” Hamilton said. “There are still vacant, abandoned houses to come down, and we’re going to continue to work on those, and we’re going to continue to look for opportunities… we’re going to keep on working on it.”