A historic downtown Durham building that has sat empty for years has been bought by the nonprofit developer Self-Help, which plans to renovate the property and lease it to fellow Triangle nonprofit MDC.

Last month, Self-Help paid $1.4 million for the John Sprunt Hill building at 307 West Main Street. It will spend $800,000 renovating the four-story, 16,295-square-foot building.

MDC, which develops anti-poverty, job training and other types of programs for struggling communities, is currently based in Chapel Hill. It expects to occupy three of the four floors by July.

MDC plans to sublet the groundfloor to another nonprofit.

Three North Carolina organizations are receiving grants from the Internal Revenue Service to fund their efforts to help people file their income taxes.

The largest chunk goes to MDC, a Chapel Hill nonprofit. The group, which focuses on education and economic issues, will get $115,000. The Latino Community Credit Union in Durham will get  $14,875 and the State Employees Credit Union will get $216,097.

In all, the IRS awarded more than $11 million in matching grants nationally to 177 organizations. Competition for the funds was strong with 374 groups submitting requests for a total of $33 million.

The money goes toward the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance programs that offer free help to people of low- to moderate-income who cannot prepare their own tax returns. This year, individuals and families with an adjusted gross income of $49,000 or lower are eligible for assistance.

The grant money helps to train volunteers in to prepare basic tax returns, add capacity to file returns electronically and extend the service to more areas.

The VITA sites are generally located at community and neighborhood centers, libraries, schools and shopping malls. When tax time comes, you can locate the nearest VITA site by calling 1-800-906-9887. For the 2010 filing season, volunteers prepared more than 3 million tax returns.