Over the next 30 years, the city of Ocala intends to pump more than $60 million into improvements to address blight through the West Ocala Community Redevelopment Area.
Committee members, area residents, city officials and NAACP representatives recently looked at and talked about some of the targeted sites.
A bus tour included the Phoenix Heights area off Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue north of Northwest 17th Street and the historic area north of State Road 40 around the Howard Academy Community Center in the 300 block of Northwest Seventh Avenue. There also was an update on two projects that are not part of the West Ocala CRA but are running parallel: the Estella Byrd Whitman Wellness Center and the Paradise Park food oasis.