Demolition crews allowed to take residents’ belongings from Realty building

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – One Youngstown city councilman has received complaints about personal items being taken from the Realty building as it undergoes demolition following the deadly gas explosion in May.

At Monday’s city council meeting, First Ward Councilman Julius Oliver brought up the issue of theft in the Realty Building.

Residents of Realty were only able to retrieve one duffle bag of their personal belongings before demolition began. Now some residents say they have seen construction workers leaving the building with their things.

“A young lady who’s a writer said she saw some of her items actually being taken out of the building,” Oliver said.

He wanted to know if the police were doing anything about items being taken from the building.

Mike Durkin — who handles demolitions for the city — answered saying once a demolition contract is awarded to a company, they can do whatever they want with what’s in that building.

“The demo company is in charge of that area now,” Durkin said.

Durkin said he’s seen cases where demolition companies were awarded contracts to demolish commercial buildings and inside they found antique cars — which they were allowed to keep.

“If they were to smash it and take it to a landfill, it’s the same thing as them taking it out. They are just salvaging what’s in the building,” he said.

That’s when Fourth Ward Councilman Mike Ray spoke up and said the construction workers should not be taking personal items from the building and profiting from them. He said it should stop immediately and items should be returned to the rightful owners.

“I would hope that people would be respectful and mindful that that’s people’s personal property. You’re carrying away someone’s memory. If you’re carrying it to a truck to cart it off, to hawk it or do something else, you should be turning that back over to the people and trying to work with people,” Ray said. “That’s just disgusting to watch someone’s life be carted away or blowing in the wind inside that building. So people should be respectful of that.”

Demolition of the Realty Tower is now to a point where items left behind can clearly be seen — a dresser full of clothes, a child’s basketball hoop, storage bins in a closet — it’s visibly personal.

“Just because you can steal something doesn’t mean you should, you know what I mean. Stealing is stealing regardless,” Oliver said.

Councilwoman Anita Davis asked Mayor Tito Brown to contact the owner of the demolition company and ask that personal items either not be removed or returned to their owner.

The mayor said he would.

Youngstown City Council also passed an ordinance Monday allowing the mayor to seek proposals for the sale and redevelopment of 20 Federal Place — the former Strouss’ building.

“We would love to see retail space to come back, bring back a little bit of our past but a touch of the present. So it may not be just all retail but at least the first floor retail and then some residential space and office space in that facility,” said Economic Development Director Stephanie Gilchrist.

The remediation is almost complete. Historical tax credits have been secured but there’s a deadline for them to be used so city officials must move quickly to get a developer in place.

The goal is to have a deal reached by the end of September.

Council also approved spending $200,000 in American Rescue Plan money to buy license plate recognition cameras and another $150,000 in ARP money for an Uptown Market Street Facade Improvement Project.

Also approved was a contract with the firefighters union giving them 2.5 percent raises the first two years and four percent raises the third year.

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