Employees at Barrio’s commissary kitchen in Cleveland barely escaped a storm of massive clay tiles sliding off a crumbling building next door, months after warning the City about the dangerous structure.
Surveillance video from the alley between the kitchen and the abandoned building shows large pieces of debris raining down from the sky, crashing into the area where Barrio smokes brisket.
The kitchen provides food for Barrio's four Cleveland-area restaurants and three food trucks.
It happened on Monday morning. Kitchen Manager Tia Rachten was standing in the spot where several tiles crashed down just ten minutes earlier.
“It would have bashed my skull in, that’s for sure,” said Rachten, holding up the 15-pound piece of debris that she found in front of the smoker.
At first she thought someone must be up there throwing bricks, but the roof of the building is completely caved in and would not allow for a person to stand up there.
News 5 cameras captured bricks still hazardously teetering over the edge of the more than 30-foot structure.
“It happened so quickly, I don’t think we could have gotten away from that,” Rachten said. "I would be dead."
The Barrio Restaurant Group moved into the building more than a year ago, with the help of a grant from the City of Cleveland to help revitalize the West Side neighborhood and create 40 jobs.
Early concerns
Barrio Operations Director Jake Hawley said that from the beginning, managers communicated their concerns about the abandoned building next door.
“We didn’t realize just how bad it was,” Hawley said. “You’re standing next to basically a ticking time bomb over here.”
According to email records, Barrio managers asked the city for help in September.
Cleveland’s Department of Building and Housing responded that the structure was too large and too costly to demolish at that time.
Eight months later and Ward 3 City Councilman Kerry McCormack told News 5 that the city is actively working on a funding solution with the county and state, which took over ownership of the property in 2014.
"Condemned and secured"
The original owner was prosecuted for multiple building code violations in a housing court case that dates back to November of 2012. She was fined just $20,000 and put on community control sanctions.
McCormack said the demolition project is estimated at $3 million dollars.
“Of course I would love if these buildings could be taken down yesterday, but putting together $3 million dollars for any project takes time,” he said in an email.
Meanwhile, he said, the structure is condemned and secured.
Not safe enough
But Barrio’s managers argue it’s still not secure enough to protect the safety of their employees. They’re now asking for temporary safety measures like netting or high fencing to be put in place while they wait for demolition.
“We just want to see some urgency and some effort to make this environment safer for our employees,” Hawley explained. "If our employees aren’t safe, we’re going to have to move to another site."
News 5 reached out the Department of Building and Housing on Thursday for information on the case. The department's director said any statement needs to come from the city’s communications department. As of Friday evening, no response had been received.
