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Bloomington-Normal, Illinois
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| NewsMonday, August 27, 2007 11:47 PM CDT |
Youth Impact ending its Scoop Dreams
BLOOMINGTON — Scoop Dreams, an ice cream shop used for job training for at-risk teenagers, will be torn down in the next few weeks. The board for Youth Impact, which operated the job development program out of the building at 702 S. Morris Ave., decided the program was too costly to continue, said Geoff Fruin, a Youth Impact board member. Scoop Dreams did not open this summer. “The board simply felt the Scoop Dreams project was not getting the bang for the same buck,” Fruin said. “It was an opportunity to divert resources to other programs.” Although the program is ending, Youth Impact will continue operating, Fruin added. As part of its agreement with the city, Youth Impact gave the land back to the city of Bloomington, which has originally helped the organization buy the property in 1997. The city will use $7,800 in federal Community Development Block Grant money to tear down the building. In looking for alternative uses for the land, city officials saw zoning codes and building repairs made it too costly to reuse the building, said Connie Griffin, division manager for code enforcement for the city’s planning and zoning department. Currently zoned for commercial use, the land will go back to residential use to conform with other property in that neighborhood, Griffin said. And even as a residential property, the size of the corner lot and requirements about how far a house must be from the streets makes building a home nearly impossible, she added. The land will be divided and adjacent landowners will take over ownership and pay taxes on the property, Griffin said. Meanwhile, an alternative program to replace Scoop Dreams is under consideration, Fruin said. The city of Bloomington and the town of Normal each are contributing $60,000 a year to fund Youth Impact. Fruin said that when the decision to close Scoop Dreams was made, the board reduced its annual request for funding from the city and the town. Previously, each community had been giving the program $90,000 a year. “The mission and goals of Youth Impact remain and we will still target working with the at-risk youth,” Fruin said. |
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