SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio – City Council is set tonight to approve spending up to $100,000 on emergency safety measures at a historic building on the Shaker Heights-Cleveland border, after a portion of the brick façade from a fourth-story roof collapsed onto the sidewalk below in September.
The money will be used to put up a protective barrier around the former First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association headquarters at the corner of Lee Road and Scottsdale Boulevard.
The City’s Building and Housing Department entered an emergency contract with Suburban Maintenance & Construction on Nov. 14, and work on the project began Monday. Council’s vote on Monday would retroactively approve the contract.
The building is owned by real estate company T.N.L. Group, which is headed up by the brother of indicted East Cleveland Mayor Brandon King.
King’s brother, Cecil King Jr., registered T.N.L Group as a business in 2008. The tax address for the business is listed at the same small office building on Euclid Avenue that houses two King family businesses at the heart of the Oct. 10 indictment charging Brandon King with theft in office and other offenses.
Brandon King has pleaded not guilty and denies the charges.
King Jr. has not been implicated in any wrongdoing.
Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer left messages seeking comment with a cellphone number that King Jr. listed in recent court filings.
The collapse was the third time a façade of a building in the eastern suburbs collapsed within a month’s time. Portions of two buildings in Cleveland Heights — including the Heights Medical Building on the corner of Cedar Road and Fairmount Boulevard — collapsed in August and September.
Shaker Heights’ Building and Housing Department declared the building a public nuisance on Sept. 14, after the city engineer and building inspectors determined the parapet on the north and east sides of the building were at risk of more partial collapses.
The city’s nuisance order, according to Building and Housing Director Kyle Krewson, gave the building’s owner until Sept. 30 to install a protective barrier and until Nov. 30 to hire a contractor to carry out a detailed inspection of the building’s façade and begin making repairs.
Krewson said the owner, to whom he did not refer by name during a recent council committee meeting, has made “some effort” to address the order’s requirements, but has yet to put up the fencing. The owner has also requested more time to get the inspection done, Krewson had said.
But the city doesn’t want to wait around for the owner to take action.
“The city is prepared to take that next step and erect the safety measures,” Krewson said.
The city paid $35,000 to Suburban Maintenance & Construction to construct the protective scaffolding above the sidewalk and entrances to the building. The cost includes renting the fencing for 28 days. The city must pay the company $288 per day for the rental.
The city will keep the fencing up until the detailed analysis can be done. If the analysis finds there is a substantial risk of collapse, it will remain in place until the repairs are complete.
Krewson said the city estimates the inspection will cost about $14,000, and another $24,000 for construction documents. In spring, the city plans to seek bids and hire a contractor to do the repairs.
The city will bill the owner for the full cost of the project and charge a 22% administrative fee. If the owner fails to pay, the city intends to seek a judgment lien against the property, Krewson said.
“I do remain optimistic and, giving the owner the benefit of the doubt, we gave them certain timelines and deadlines that they to-date have made some effort but haven’t really fully complied with,” Krewson said. “It’s unclear whether they will in fact make those repairs in the next six-to-eight months.”
The building is a city landmark and serves as an architectural keystone in the Moreland Hills neighborhood.
The First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association, a fraternal benefit society that was formed in Cleveland in 1892, built the four-story brick building as its national headquarters in 1930. The group left the building in 1969 and moved its headquarters to Chagrin Boulevard in Beachwood.
Shaker Heights officials designated the building a local landmark in 1998.
King Jr.‘s T.N.L. Investment and Realty Corporation bought the building in 2002 for $112,000.
The Ohio Secretary of State’s Office in 2007 cancelled T.N.L. Investment and Realty’s articles of incorporation. The order said the company “failed to file necessary franchise tax reports or pay any such taxes within the time prescribed by law.”
King Jr. formed T.N.L. Group in 2008 and transferred the building to the new company.
The building has two vacant storefronts on the ground floor, and 14 apartments. As of March, 80% of the units were occupied, Krewson said.
The county valued the building in 2023 at about $385,000, Krewson said.
Shaker Heights’ finance committee approved the measure, and recommended that the full council pass it at Monday night’s meeting.
Committee member Ketan Patel questioned how much money the owner might be willing to invest in the building, noting that the cost of the fencing alone could be more than a third of the building’s valuation.
“We can’t not act to protect the public here,” Patel said. “Especially if the owner has not stepped up to act.”