Huge fire on S Verity

The building on Verity Parkway that burned down over night was, I believe, the former Middletown Box Board business. The news media said it was being considered suspicious.

It was purchased by BP Logan LLC in 2012 for $5000 from The Newark Group. It was apparently abandoned after the interior was stripped of everything of value. This occurred with the knowledge of “city hall” whose sloppy handling of supposed revitalization agreements has left us with another nuisance to be razed at the city’s expense.

Does the gutted and abandoned property known as The Strand Theatre look similar on a smaller scale? The neighboring property owner, Mr Robinette (Liberty Spirits), is complaining about it affecting his property. Of course the city will have to make that right!! No matter that the downtown is dotted with Mr Robinette’s abandoned revitalization projects.

Next...the Mike Allen Real Estate Holdings LLC. Anybody seen any activity there?

Maybe the city’s advertised plan to rent office space at Goetz Tower didn’t have the desired effect of making it “look like” a viable business venture that could get a loan to rehab it…. Or, if they did get a loan on that promise, they may have had a better use for it elsewhere.

In any case the flood was most likely due to negligence and probably would not have occurred had there been rehab activity going on (as claimed). There was no heat in the building, there are no gas meters and the sprinkler system pipes froze and burst.

Now there seems every possibility that the Tower could follow the “demolition road” since there must be considerable costly damage top to bottom. “Historic Goetz Tower LLC” have no one but themselves to blame, but you can bet that Middletown tax payers will pay again.

Also, the former Senior Citizens Building (which the city virtually paid Mike Allen to take) appears to have little or no activity and may just follow the same pattern of promise, renege and abandon.

The Journal has reported again today (2/6/2018) that neighboring residents to the Middletown Paperboard building observed a suspicious vehicle just previous to the fire. It has also been reported that the building is a meeting place for teens and “others.” The record of police reports in the vicinity contains numerous reports of suspicious activity over the years since the factory closed. See one example below (with names and address of complainant redacted). This is only one of hundreds of police runs surrounding this building. How many other incidents may have gone unreported?

The entire area has been a hot bed of drug related problems. It might be concluded that city hall’s repeated mishandling of give-away sale of commercial properties for supposed revitalization all over downtown has had the effect of promoting vandalism, theft, drug activity and all other related felonious offenses. And we, the citizens, continue to allow city hall to ruin our city.

The police report said

MIDDLETOWN DIVISION OF POLICE One Donham Plaza Middletown, Ohio 45042 513-425-7700 OFFENSE TYPE: SUS./VEH

WHERE OCCURRED: ...PARK ST

DATE REPORT: 09/07/2016 EARLIEST TIME: 18:46 LATEST TIME: 21:23

PROPERTY DAMAGED DAMAGE TO FENCE - $0.00

NARRATIVE: I was dispatched to the 400-block of Park on a report of a group of juvenile males throwing propane tanks and destroying other items. Upon arrival, I made contact with complainant. He advised that group of juveniles on bikes were in the area trying to get into the factory there at 409 Park. I did observe that part of the fence had been bent back, where complainant stated that these individuals had gone through with their bikes. I did not locate any damage on complainant’s property. I kept a check in the area for the juveniles. I advised a report would be on file, and cleared.

Kirby-570 --- 2L9 --- ep/6 Copy to Juvenile Detectives

It appears that the call to police was made nearly 3 hours before the end time of the report. And apparently none of the juveniles were on scene when police arrived.