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MOGANTOWN - Now several years past a strategic planning process, Morgantown's nonprofit Campus Neighborhoods Revitalization Corp., known familiarly as Sunnyside Up, has shifted its priorities and is making progress.
"Nothing succeeds like success," said Executive Director James Hunt. "You start seeing buildings coming out of the ground, you start seeing the interest from out-of-state and in-state property development companies it's really started to percolate to where now it is literally red hot as a development place."
The group was formed several years ago to bring new life to Sunnyside, the blighted but densely populated residential district just north of West Virginia University's downtown campus. It is supported by $100,000 a year each from WVU and from the city.
An early accomplishment was the group's ambitious 2004 Comprehensive Revitalization Plan, which called for a mix of high-, medium- and low-density residences with retail mixed in, a pedestrian and bicycle path connecting WVU's two campuses and small and large green spaces.
And then ... not much.
Not much until last August, when a porch roof collapsed, injuring two WVU students. Five buildings were condemned, and some people started...