Does anyone know anything about this?

 

 

Fire breaks near West Side Market

From WKYC-TV 3 reports

September 28, 2005

 

CLEVELAND -- An overnight fire causes severe damage to a building on Cleveland's west side.

 

The triple alarm fire broke out near the West Side Market around West 25th and Lorain.

 

The building was under construction, and nobody was inside.

 

 

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For more, go to: www.wkyc.com.

 

Yes, it's the building in the center of this pic with "Payless Shoes" painted on the side. Fortunately no one was hurt and the building was unoccupied. Unfortunately, it was in the process of rehab and may have to be demolished - and the offices inside the neighboring Orange Blossom Press building suffered some water damage:

 

boo, that was a nice facade

arson? insurance scam? smells like it could be either. too bad.

I passed this building on my walk home last night from the Red Line around 11:30 and said to myself..."I'll have to get a picture of that soon and put it up on UrbanOhio."  The banner in front of the windows announced the future home of some sort of school or school-related program.  It looked to me as though the rehab was pretty far along.  The facade was beautiful and clean and machinery had been on site for several weeks, if not more.  I was delighted to see this coming along and now, what?

 

I'm glad to hear that no one was injured, but it saddens me to think that this building might be lost, along with its future programming.  Does anyone know anything about the occupant that was scheduled to move in?

 

This is also another tragic fire to add to the list of recent success stories gone up in flames.  The building adjacent to the Agora (now an empty pit) was in the process of being rehabbed and had apparently secured tenants already...until a gas leak and explosion sent the building to the scrapyards before anyone could even move in (someone correct me if I've got this wrong)... what's going on here???

I was getting soup for dinner tonight from the Souper Market and as I walked down W.25th I passed this building - it is the second store west of the Market (next door to the Middle Eastern Food store-front).  I hate to say it but it looks pretty bad.  The fire department was boarding it up as I stood and looked up.  The roof seems to be mostly gone.  Although a fair portion of the front of the building is in okay condition but I'm not sure that it could be re-built.  If you look at the previous picture all of the windows between the second and third floor (besides being non-existant) have really bad damage to the ceramic tile that encloses them.  It was lucky though that the fire did not spread to the other buildings.  I was talking with some people nearby and one of the street's business owners told me that next month there was supposed to be a school that instructs bank tellers moving in.  Another thing I noticed was that there was a sign in the front window that said "sprinkler system disabled"  I believe that sign had been in the window previously. 

 

On another note I had heard that the building next to the Agora was supposed to house some nonprofit offices and also the builder's office that was working on the project.  At least that's what I remember.

MGD,

 

The firm that you are referring to is a tech firm that did computer stuff with schools.  It is exactly that type of business that Cleveland needs to grow.  I believe that it was moving in from Elyria.

While watching TV last night, there was an ad for whatever news channel it was (5, I believe) that featured a bunch of rapid-fire images from past news stories.  I paused it on an image of a building burning with tons of black smoke coming out...after looking at it for a minute, I could tell that it was the building next to the Agora.  I'd like to see more coverage from that day, as this was just a split second, but it looked pretty huge.

 

Also, I rode by the W. 25th site on my way home last night and it did, indeed, look pretty bad.  The upper floors were falling in and the facade is pretty badly charred & melted.  so sad

Any word on the cause yet?

My apartment is across the street from the building on West 25th, and I was awoken at four in the morning last week by the fire.  It's really as shame, the building was coming along nicely.  I took some incredible pictures of firemen hoisted by cranes fighting the fire, with downtown Cleveland featured prominently in the background.  I should have called the Plain Dealer over to take pictures, it was quite a sight.

 

SchoolOne, the company planning on moving in, would have been a great addition to the neighborhood.  SchoolOne is an internet company based in Elyria that provides software that connects teachers to parents, so parents don't have to wait for parent-teacher conferences to get information about what is going on with their child.  It will be interesting to see what happens at the site now, rumor has it the building will need to be demolished.  Maybe a last minute site for the Hope VI project? 

^its too small.

Its an idea.  I wouldn't mind parting ways with the buildings on the immdieate right and left of the burned out building.  It would make for a nice sized apartment building with parking underneath (like the Fries & Schuele across the street).

It's too small for the entire project, but it could work if they stuck to the scattered site plan.  They'd have to tear down the adjacent buildings, and probably don't have the resources to get the land, but you're right Wimwar, it wouldn't be a bad place for an apartment building with retail on bottom.

A fire at 4 a.m. in an unoccupied building? Hmmm...sounds like "Jewish Lightning" to me.

 

KJP

 

P.S. don't freak out PCers. "Jewish Lightning" is what Jewish gangsters in Cleveland like Jackie Presser, his father Big Bill Presser, Maishe Rockman, Alex "Shondor" Birns, Morrie Kleinman, Sam Tucker, Morris "Moe" Dalitz and many others used to call fires that happened in the middle of the night, at businesses that were deeply in debt. It's likely that many of those fires were set by those very same fellows.

Wimwar posted this elsewhere, but for the sake of completeness, the building is apparently going to be saved! It has been evaluated and deemed salvageable. The facade will facade.

the facade will facade?  what's that mean? 

 

yes, this is great news... I was thrilled to find this out, but sad to hear that it was 100% rented at rates that are on par with some of the higher rates Downtown!  talk about "emerging!" I say "sad," because it sounded so great and then went up in smoke...

Oops! :-o

I guess I was a little loopy when I typed that. The facade will be restored.

No "news" on this story to date, but walking past today, I found the sidewalk taped off and workers up in the upper floors, working on the roof and other assorted things.  It still looks the same as it did the day after the fire, though, so who knows what the plans are?

 

I really hope they save it. In the meantime, I'm just glad to see it getting any attention at all. This has been a real eyesore for about four months now!

I look down into this building from my apartment, they've been removing the floors and other things during the last week or so.  I saw them taking a chainsaw to the roof the other day.

i'm just glad the building has been tagged.  go cleveland.

fyi : school one is now moving into the idea center at playhouse square