CLEVELAND — Cleveland Slavic Village business owner James Dotson is living the dream, opening The Hotdog Cafethis past summer on Broadway Avenue, but he believes the city needs to do more to address vacant buildings along that business corridor.
Dotson told News 5 that the old Erie Savings and Loan building just 500 feet from his business is a real danger to the neighborhood children and he's hoping the City of Cleveland will invest more resources along the crucial Broadway business district.
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"I remember when I was a kid growing up, it used to be businesses flourishing up and down Broadway, it’s just changed a lot, you know. Of course, I just wish they would bring more funding like they’re doing to the west side, you go into Ohio City it’s crazy over there," Dotson said. “It’s real bad even if you look at the old bank over here, you go in there, there’s debris everywhere, they should just figure out what they’re going to do with these abandoned buildings, some they can tear down, some they can restore them and bring them back up.”
Odetta Jordan, Executive Director of the Slavic Village Southeast Cleveland Resource Center, told News residents have been complaining about safety at the old bank building for years.
“It’s horrible for a fire hazard. It’s horrible for the people breaking into it, they can fall through the floor if they’re not overdosing in there," Jordan said. “There’s so many buildings, especially here on Broadway, that are in this condition that are falling apart. I don’t know why they keep overlooking these buildings.”
Jordan said she can't understand why the City of Cleveland has not yet condemned the old bank building, which she believes is a hazard to school children. Jordan said the city has not lived up to a funding promise it made to improve the Slavic Village neighborhood.
“There’s a daycare, there’s a school like I said, there’s a housing development just two blocks down, these kids walk by this every day," Jordan said. “We were so hard hit when the housing crisis hit, that we were going to see money for development, but yet when ARPA money came and it came into the southeast neighborhoods, we were skipped over.”
News 5 contacted a representative of the bank building New York ownership group, and we were told it's a real cat-and-mouse game trying to keep the building secure, with vagrants taking down the boarded-up doorways nearly every week. News 5 was told ownership is in the process of trying to secure federal brownfield grants, which would help pay for the demolition of the old building, something ownership hopes to secure within the next 6-months.
Meanwhile, the City of Cleveland Department of Building and Housing responded to our story with the following statement:
We have received complaints in recent months for inspection and board-up requests pertaining to this property and worked to complete those as quickly as possible. We will do the same for this latest complaint, which we received late on Friday.
We will be sending out an inspector this week who will help determine the next steps which could include issuing a violation notice and – should the property owner not comply – seeking a search warrant, followed by potential condemnation and demolition.
News 5 is committed to following through on this developing story.
