Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Now, at their other property, a 9-unit apartment building just a few blocks away, all of their tenants are moving out, because the owners won't fix the roof, or (more importantly for November in Ohio) the boiler.
I can almost understand using the larger building as a large cell tower for easy money. But, why let the smaller building go vacant?
We've made quite a bit of progress toward revitalizing this neighborhood. But, these properties (and others like them, owned by other out-of-state entities) are really thwarting our efforts, and it's frustrating!
I think it's a weird-looking building that's the wrong look and scale for the neighborhood. The tower portion is downright ugly. The front part, the lower building, looks like it could be cleaned up well. But the whole thing looks like two disparate buildings, or like an original building with a tower added. Maybe that's what it actually was? I don't know Y-Town's history, except that there was a huge construction boom in the '20s.
If those buildings have huge gorgeous prewar apartments with hardwood floors and millwork to die for, then I think there are better buildings (like big historic houses) in Y-Town that are more worthy of being saved. But that's just my $0.02.
"What do investors have to gain by NOT maintaining their property?"
A belief that doing so will result in a higher ROI.
Simple as that.
Yeah. And at some point, the building is worth nothing, or it's worth actually less than nothing if the owner must incur costs to have it demolished. The value of the property is then the value of the land only, so why put any money into the decayed building(s) on it. There are lots of vacant old buildings in Youngstown, and all over the towns and cities of the Rust Belt, for that matter. Too bad we can't pick them up and move them to some locale where they would be restored, appreciated, and used. It saddens me that ancestors built buildings with pride to last generations or the ages, but in maybe only 75-120 years, these great gifts are reduced to crumbling ruins and abandonments. (While we flee to cheap little houses out in the former cornfields and cow pastures of muddy and massively-inconvenient formerly-rural B.F.E.)
It appears..the LAND is far more important than the building much less those who reside there...It also appears..residents had no venue to hold owner's to what most would think would be part of the purchase agreement...NOPE..Thus Investors more than willing to let the residents and the building to decay..and then flip that to gain profit...What else is new?? Capitalism at it's finest!!
I think it's a weird-looking building that's the wrong look and scale for the neighborhood. The tower portion is downright ugly. The front part, the lower building, looks like it could be cleaned up well. But the whole thing looks like two disparate buildings, or like an original building with a tower added. Maybe that's what it actually was? I don't know Y-Town's history, except that there was a huge construction boom in the '20s.
If those buildings have huge gorgeous prewar apartments with hardwood floors and millwork to die for, then I think there are better buildings (like big historic houses) in Y-Town that are more worthy of being saved. But that's just my $0.02.
The whole building was originally designed to be 8 stories, but the front section was lowered to better fit the scale the neighborhood.
It's rumored that Jack Warner (Warner Bros.) even lived here at one time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lyndarn
It appears..the LAND is far more important than the building much less those who reside there...It also appears..residents had no venue to hold owner's to what most would think would be part of the purchase agreement...NOPE..Thus Investors more than willing to let the residents and the building to decay..and then flip that to gain profit...What else is new?? Capitalism at it's finest!!
Unfortunately, I think that would be a miscalculation on the owners' part. In both cases, I have a hard time believing the land would be worth more without the building. In the case of the larger building, all that's likely to be built in its place would be student housing, and I think it would be cheaper to rehab the existing building into student housing. In the case of the recently vacated smaller building, I think it's more likely that the land would just sit vacant, if the building were demolished.
There's bound to be some sort of tax loophole or financial scam that benefits the owners.
Remember the S&L scam where they kept selling those properties back and forth to each other for ever higher amounts until the whole house of cards came down, leaving the S&Ls and the taxpayers on the hook for their film flam? The actual value of the properties and whether they were kept up or not made no difference. They were merely pawns not actual properties.
I suspect that is what is going on here.
Will the city be any help in condemning the building or ??
My husband is from Mansfield Ohio and I've heard of Youngstown and think it isn't far from there. I know that Mansfield and places around there are depressed areas where factories have closed, business has left and property values have fallen to nothing. I read the article. I think the first paragraph explains a lot. They haven't paid the property taxes. Likely they owe more than it is worth now, can't sell it and don't want to put anymore into it and figure to just write it off as a loss and walk away from it is the best option.
I disagree with the poster that said its ugly. I think that's kind of a neat looking old building. Too bad really.
Interesting. Are there laws that force a property to be sold or improved when it gets to this situation? Perhaps maintaining the shell of the building is enough? Or do neighbors have a right to complain about potential vermin--six-legged, four-legged, and even two-legged squatters getting in, then spreading to the rest of the block?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
