A task to banish a resident raccoon and unplug a gutter has "snowballed" into an interior makeover of a 125-year-old former firehouse in Omaha's Little Italy neighborhood. 

But that's just the beginning. Owners of the narrow two-story structure — which has long been the Santa Lucia Hall — now want to launch a major capital campaign to restore its exterior, redo the roof, open up windows that haven't seen the light in decades, and perhaps even build an addition in back. While a design and master plan have yet to be completed, the project is envisioned as an investment of several hundred thousand dollars in the rediscovered and trendy enclave whose history revolves around an Italian immigrant population that settled in the hills south of downtown in the 1890s and early 1900s.

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Source: http://www.omaha.com/