CONCERNS — Owners Cameron and Matt Fradd closed on the purchase of a building at 114 S. Fourth Street just one week before they say a side-facing wall was destabilized by the demolition of the old Moose lodge. -- Linda Harris

STEUBENVILLE — The owners of a business property damaged last month while another building was being demolished asked City Council Tuesday for help getting the contractor to at least shore up a wall that’s in danger of collapsing until a long-term resolution is worked out.

Cameron Fradd said she and her husband, Matt, had closed on the building a week before crews tasked with demolishing the old Moose building inadvertently collapsed a garage next to it, which, in turn, destabilized their building, causing a brick wall to “visibly bow.”

Adding insult to injury, she said, was the inspections department pink slipping the property, slapping “Danger — Keep Out” notices on the doors giving them to Sept. 1 to either fix it or demolish it.

Their tenants, both residential and commercial, have already vacated the property.

“It’s a little disheartening,” Fradd said, telling council they’d closed on the building’s purchase on July 5 and “the demolition happened” July 11.

The demolition was done under the auspices of the Jefferson County Land Bank, which hired the contractor.

Fradd said their attorney has “tried to communicate” with both entities “but it’s just crickets from (them) both.”

“We’re not saying it’s your fault at all,” she told council. “(But) could you please help us get them to fix this building? We don’t want another building downtown demolished — it’s a beautiful building, we want it restored. We were planning on doing that, but now that an exterior wall has been compromised could you please help us get them to do this?”

Fradd said she and her husband both run faith-based podcasts, and they’d planned to relocate their recording studio to the building.

“(We) moved here 2 ½ years ago, we were very excited to come to Steubenville. We wanted a town we could make a difference in, we were excited to do that.”

The couple had planned to put a recording studio in the space.

“We knew work needed to be done,” she said. “Our plan was to redo the electrical because it wasn’t great. We had money we were going to be putting into this building. I was heartbroken when I got a call from a friend saying, ‘Have you checked on your building, because when they took down the Moose lodge they took down the garage beside you … I’d be surprised if your building’s not damaged.’ This was a contractor friend of ours.”

She said she was “shocked and appalled” when she saw the flattened garage.

“There was a huge hole where the garage used to be,” she said. “And not only did material fall on the building, but then the construction company continued to remove the foundation of the garage and, in the process, removed the floor joints.

“This was a beautiful, expensive building we just bought.”

Fradd said Gateway Engineers, a Pittsburgh company the contractor hired to review the stability of the existing structure, determined the “portion of the … property above the second floor level appears to be laterally destabilized and lacks adequate attachment to the floor framing at several locations.” “Further distresses or movements may cause localized sudden and brittle failures of the wall structure and supported floor framing,” Structural Engineer Alex Damewood wrote. “Further, any persons occupying the … property should be made aware of the observed conditions; without immediate bracing and remediation of the existing structure, we believe the existing observed structural conditions represent a life-safety issue for anyone occupying the … property.”

Damewood recommended the property owner “take immediate action to stabilize the brick wall … through installation of retrofit brick anchors at the second floor, third floor and attic levels,” saying the anchors will “serve to connect the brick wall to the structural framing at each level to prevent the wall from being able to pull away from the rest of the structure.”

Once that’s done, he said the contractor could get rid of the temporary bracing and demolish parts of the wall that had been supported by the garage wall and use a concrete “flowable fill” to reinforce the foundation.

Fradd said she learned about the city’s ‘fix it-or-demolish-it’ order around 6 p.m. Friday when one of her tenants contacted her and said there wasn’t even a phone number for someone they could contact with questions or concerns.

Earlier, sixth Ward Councilman Mike Hernon told City Manager Jim Mavromatis he’d like to talk with him and Urban Projects Director Chris Petrassi “as soon as possible” about how the city can improve its response should it ever happen again.

“It may not change the reality of what happened, but I think we can do a better job communicating with our business owners,” Hernon said.

“I know it’s a land bank (demolition), I know there’s a contractor (that was hired),” he said. “But I want to make sure we stand by the part we played as a city.”

Councilwoman at large Kimberly Hahn reminded council she’d raised concerns three weeks ago about the potential risk to the Fradds’ property given that the garage between it and the Moose building had collapsed and was told there was none.

“I was assured there’s not going to be damage,” she said. “I really want to understand why we didn’t halt the demolition at that point and have someone responsible, engage an engineer, to look at it.”

She also said she was “bothered” that the only communication from the city’s building department was to post the pink slip.

“It seems to me at the very least we’ve got to change the way we respond,” she said. “If we don’t have a phone number (someone can call after hours) … at the least it should been brought to their home and discussed, and I really believe instead of saying you’ve got 30 days to resolve this we should have said, ‘How can we facilitate whatever conversation needs to happen between the land bank and the demolition people who’ve got insurance to cover this and before we go any further, we need to get it resolved.”

She said the city’s “approach has to change.”

Second Ward Councilman Tracy McManamon said better communication is critical going forward, “not just with the Fradd building but going forward in situations like this.”

“I think we need a face-to-face visit in situations like this, especially when we give them such a small window to respond,” he said, pointing out 30 days “(isn’t) a lot of time for them to respond. We need to figure out a better way to do it, especially something as serious as this situation.”

McManamon, meanwhile, sunshined a resolution honoring the Rev. Calvin McLoyd Jr., who is retiring, while Hahn called for a planning committee meeting Sept. 12 at 6 p.m. to discuss the Choice Neighborhood grant process with community leaders from Pittsburgh.

Council also:

— Heard second readings of legislation that would authorize Mavromatis to sign a contract with W.E. Quicksall & Associates for engineering services for a bulk water sales project and accepting the amounts and rates determined by the budget commission, authorizing the necessary tax levies, and certifying them to the Jefferson County auditor.

— Heard first readings of legislation that would authorize Mavromatis to seek bids for the Beatty Park bridge project and for the purchase of “necessary supplies” for the service department for 2024.