Hundreds of vacant lots still available in Springfield

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WICS/WRSP) — Hundreds of vacant lots around Springfield went up for sale in June, and now, the first round of properties are ready to be sold.

There are still about 170 vacant lots up for grabs all over the city.

Six of the properties are about to be sold, and ten more are being reviewed.

All of these sales have to be approved by the city council, but that's only the final step.

People looking to purchase a lot have to fill out an application, it goes through a review process, it gets approved or denied, and then it faces city council scrutiny.

Officials say many of these lots used to have blighted structures on them.

That's why there's such a strict application process.

"We had to use taxpayer dollars or resources to abate, demolish, or just demolish a structure, so we want to try and mitigate and prevent that from happening in the future," said Amanda Long, head of purchasing for the City of Springfield.

The city says most of the applications they've gotten are from people wanting to expand their property, but there are some unique ideas in there as well.

The bidding for these lots starts at $500.

The city says they only sold 21 vacant lots after releasing the list in 2019.

Officials say that could be because of the pandemic, so they hope to sell more this time around.