A vacant apartment building near Shaker Square could be headed for new ownership.
Cleveland City Hall has been in housing court for a year trying to wrest control of the building at 2962 S. Moreland Blvd. from the local investor who owns it.
The city labeled the three-story brick walk-up a public nuisance in 2016. Today, the building is boarded up. Several windows are broken, and the yard is overgrown.
Housing Court Administrative Judge W. Moná Scott gave the city the go-ahead in February to bring in a receiver to take possession of the property and clean it up.
Then the building’s owner – a company called Nesvest LLC – proposed an alternative. Nesvest’s lawyer told a housing court magistrate in June that the company had lined up a buyer who would fix up the dilapidated building.
City Hall is open to the idea.
“If the new buyer in fact has the resources to rehab, then we’re all in favor of that,” Law Director Mark Griffin told Signal Cleveland.
The court will get an update on the building’s fate in August.
This building is one of a few that Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration is trying to take into receivership. Griffin characterized the legal move as a last resort for making landlords fix their housing code violations.
While receivership may be a last resort, it’s not a swift one. City Hall’s legal cases against Nestvest and another Shaker Square landlord have gone on for more than a year.
“We wish it were faster and more effective,” Griffin said. “But at some level, it’s like, what do we have left?”
