The New York owner of three Cleveland apartment buildings on Shaker Blvd. which went without heat for months this winter met with community members this week to talk about plans to fix the building. The meeting was set up after Ward 4 Cleveland city council member Deborah Gray traveled to the owner’s New York offices to ask for a meeting after she and others had made several unsuccessful attempts to contact them.
At the Feb. 22 meeting, owner Yaacov Amar and his team from E&M Management said they’re working to fix the heat and water problems and address city violation notices, and that they’ve spent $1 million and plan to spend another $1 million to upgrade mechanical systems in the buildings.
Representatives from The Land and other media organizations were barred from attending the meeting by the owners, but The Land obtained a recording of it afterwards. Owner Yaacov Amar began the meeting with a mea culpa to the crowd of about 40 residents who attended the meeting, which was held at Our Lady of Peace Church on Shaker Blvd.
“We bought the property on January 10, 2022, and we didn’t do any due diligence on the property when we bought it,” he said. “Some people had bought it, but they didn’t have the money to buy the property, so they called us, and we bought the property because they didn’t have the funds for the property. The day we bought the property was January 10, and on January 12 we had the first (building problem) in the Vista buildings (located at 12500-12600 Shaker Blvd.). At the time we didn’t even have management … It is my fault. I was not involved in the property a lot.”
Amar blamed the previous management company, Friedman Management, saying they did not communicate well with the owners, so he was not aware of the problems until November when Friedman left.
Shaker Heights Apartment Owners LLC, a group with ties to the Chetrit Group in New York City, bought the three buildings at 12500, 12600, and 12701 Shaker Blvd. in January 2022 for $12.4 million. (The precise nature of Amar’s relationship to the LLC and the Chetrit Group is not clear, but he speaks as a purchaser and owner of the apartment buildings.) At the time of the purchase, the building had already been cited for several interior and exterior violations, including lack of heat and issues with the elevators, according to city records obtained by The Land. Numerous tenants have now deposited their rent into escrow with the Cleveland housing court until repairs can be made.
At the meeting, Amar pledged to fix heat and water leaks caused by broken pipes, implement a streamlined system for logging and fixing complaints, and address thousands of backlogged work orders, but provided no timeline for the repairs. Amar said Friedman Management is no longer in the picture and E&M Management and property manager Danielle Holifield are now responsible.
To fix the heat and water issues that are causing residents to heat their units with their stoves and space heaters and deal with ceilings caving in, Amar said the building owners must add individual shut-off valves to the water and heating mechanicals in every unit.
“I know some residences in the buildings didn’t have heat since when we bought it … I do believe everyone now has heat and hot water, except for a handful,” he said. “We are working hard to solve the problem.” Additionally, Amar said, the broken passenger elevators in the buildings will be fixed in the next two months.
“We have a lot of stuff to solve, we need you to be patient with us and not harass us, we’re here to work together and do our best,” he told the crowd.
Frustration boiled over at his response and the lack of a clear timeline and comprehensive plan for building repairs. In one particularly tense moment, a resident asked Amar how to contact him so that they can let him know if issues aren’t fixed in a timely way.
“You, sir, have repeatedly said that you don’t know what’s going on and no one spoke to you,” said Ronald James, a retired county worker who lives at The Residences of Shaker Boulevard at 12701 Shaker. “Can you please give us a number where we can call you if these complaints are not addressed?”
After the owner and managers tried to refer James to the online system and property manager, he told them they were passing the buck and broke in, “I’m talking to you! I want your number, I don’t want management’s number.”
After being put on the spot, the owner said he would give it out, but would block anyone who “harassed” him. Jay Westbrook of the Morelands Group, a grassroots organization that is an offshoot of Shaker Square Alliance, later told The Land in an email that the owner never provided it or answered the question about who is responsible.
Another resident of the Shaker buildings, who did not provide her name, complained about the owners’ lack of accountability.
“There is such a lack of professionalism and professional standards for taking care of these buildings,” she said. “As owners, we should be your first priority. You keep saying ‘Friedman did this, and Friedman did that’ – well, as an owner I think you should have kept bases with Friedman on what they were doing. You’ve been here since December. It should have been a priority before that. It should not have been a priority only after the media got in touch with you.”
Another resident complained about having to use a space heater and her oven to heat her apartment.
“It pisses me off when I go by the building, and I see windows up in some apartments, and the heat doesn’t work in my apartment,” she said. “I’m tired of heating my apartment with an oven. Space heaters from Home Depot are expensive.”
E&M Management promised to get space heaters in every room for those without heat and pledged to fix the heating problems within one week. At a meeting held the next day between The Morelands Group and city building and housing officials, city building inspector Eddie Sugar stated that the heat is now working in the buildings.
Amar stated that anyone who has put their rent into escrow with Cleveland housing court will not receive an eviction notice until mediation. However, residents who stop paying their rent and don’t put it into escrow will receive 3-day notices, he said.
“If I was in your shoes, I would do the same thing,” he said. “I want to say as the owner that I’m sorry, and we will do our best to solve it. We will do our best.”
Cleveland Housing Court records provided by the Morelands Group show that the owners have filed eviction notices against 26 tenants in the three buildings, and that more than a dozen tenants are holding their rent in court-sanctioned escrow accounts until repairs are made.
Griffin closed the meeting by saying the city is going to keep its options open and may still file a nuisance lawsuit against the building owners if they don’t make repairs.
At a meeting with The Moreland Group on Feb. 23, the city’s director of building and housing, Sally Martin O’Toole, told the group that the owners owe more than $100,000 in past due utility bills to the city of Cleveland (Cleveland Public Power and Cleveland Water).
“The city is ready to take very aggressive action,” Griffin said. “This is great, but the city made it clear, the city attorney made it clear, they are now the ones who had the property. The judge made it clear no one who is in escrow is going to be evicted. They have the court case that needs to be addressed to clear violation notices. These guys have given us this commitment, but let me say this: trust but verify. If we don’t get results, the city will be taking aggressive action to get the results we need.”
The uncorrected violations case against the owners will come before Cleveland Housing Court on Feb. 27.