my town bought "abandoned buildings" from the previous owners (for taxes etc) Fixed them up and sold them to someone else... now one such building (a Mainstreet building) how has three new businesses in it.. and it started out having a hole in the roof big enough to need a a plastic swimming pool on the bottom floor to keep the leaking water (it's two stories tall ) another one they bought and have been fixing up, it's at least 3 stories tall and is an old historic hotel....
Mind you i don't agree with the Means that they did these buy outs... however i do enjoy the sight of the results of at least one of them... (i haven't been in these new businesses, but that's because ones a mesuise, and the other is a small clinic for a discraced doctor who was nearly forced out of the main clinic in town... (i wish he had been i dislike him... the old pill pushing gerk) (i think there is a third one but i don't remember what it is...).
as for the other building, i don't know what's going to end up moving in there, i do know however that they had to tear out a LOT of aspestus, and they wanted to keep as much of the historic interior as possible.