Surrounded: Market Street Florist Contends with Blight

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From the Business Journal on 10/21/2005...

Surrounded: Market Street Florist Contends with Blight
By Cynthia Vinarsky

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio --Tom Butler's Youngstown flower shop is marooned, an island surrounded by vacant, boarded-up buildings.

The owner of Burkland Flowers, 3514 Market St., recently repainted the white picket fences that set his business apart from the weed-filled properties cluttered with litter.

Now Butler worries that vandals will destroy the fences.

He's watched vacant sites on both sides of his property deteriorate. Now he says littering and vandalism around his store seem to be on the rise.

Wooden slats from the picket fence were yanked off and carried away, other sections were kicked or smashed and marked with graffiti. Bags of household trash and fast-food wrappers are often tossed in his parking lot.

Burkland's has no immediate neighbors, so there's no one nearby to help keep an eye out for trouble.

"It's discouraging, and it doesn't help my business," Butler says. "I've had customers come in worried that I might move. I really don't want to do that. The area has been good to me."

Butler's floral business seemed to be in an ideal location when he bought the longtime south side Youngstown store in 1990.

In the years that followed, he saw neighboring businesses close down.

Master's Tuxedo went out of business in 2002, leaving behind a large, 23,690-square-foot one-time bowling alley on the 1.35-acre site.

Sherwin-Williams moved out too, relocating in Boardman. The 10,000-square-foot store it left behind also remains empty.

And the former Penn-Ohio Business College directly across the street from Burkland's has been shuttered since the mid-1990s.

Doors and windows of the vacant buildings were boarded to keep vandals and vagrants out, but the wood has aged, and high weeds have sprouted in and around the parking lots. Litter and broken glass add to the scene of abandonment.

The Masters building is owned by CIT Small Business Lending Corp. in Livingston, N.J., a mortgage lender that took back the property from the previous owner in 2003.

The company's Ohio account representative referred inquiries to Gia Porta-Lenza, CIT's marketing and communications director. She did not return calls requesting comment.

George Freeman Jr., the Re/Max Valley real estate agent handling the sale of the Masters building, defends the condition of that property.

"The building is completely closed up, and the weeds beside the property belong to the flower shop next door," he argues.

"You talk about weeds growing in the cracks in the driveway? There are businesses that are open and doing business around there, and they have grass and weeds growing up around the cracks."

Freeman became irate when a reporter asked who is responsible for maintaining the property for the out-of-town landowner. "If we had a problem, we'd find out whose responsibility it is to take care of the problem," he says. "As far as I'm concerned, we don't have a problem."

Freeman reports he's had several interested buyers, but none could reach an agreement with the owner on price.

Records in the Mahoning County auditor's office list the market value at $306,500, but Freeman says the asking price is $155,000.

A Cuyahoga Falls man who owns a Blue Ribbon Rental store, a rent-to-own chain, paid $160,000 for the former Sherwin Williams building at 3500 Market St. in the summer of 2004.

Owner William Wendell says he was surprised to learn that the commercial site is littered with trash and overgrown with weeds. "I'm not denying it, but I'm kind of surprised. I thought it was all concrete, nothing much there to maintain," he says.

Wendell says he bought the structure from Bank One not long after Sherwin-Williams moved out because he thought it was a good location.

Wendell expected to open a store or lease the building out soon after buying it, he says, but now finds himself "on the fence" about what to do with the site. He wouldn't say what is causing the delay.

Blue Ribbon Rentals has seven stores in three states and once operated two stores in the Youngstown area, one on Belmont Avenue, the other on Market Street. Wendell sold them to the former Rainbow Rental in 1999, he says.

"If anyone in the Youngstown area is interested in buying or renting the building, that would get me off fence," he says, adding that the building has a large, "bone-dry" basement.

One leader in the city's effort to beautify its main thoroughfares agrees that the old Masters Tuxedo and Sherwin Williams buildings have a run-down appearance but would not go so fare as to classify them as "blighted."

"I'd use the terms unsightly or unattractive," says Richard Billak, chief executive at Community Corrections Association. The agency has improved 24 buildings and lots on Market Street since 1997.

"Those are sound buildings. The roofs are not caving in," Billak explains. "The buildings look bad, but they're sellable and useable."

That's not much consolation to the owner of Burkland's Flowers.

Butler says he had his business appraised recently and learned his property value had dropped considerably, largely because of the longtime vacancies.

Founded in 1908 at its present location on Market Street, Burkland's is one of the area's oldest businesses. The shop occupies the first floor of a house, worn but still charming with its ivy-covered brick front, large display windows and stone floor entryway.

The owner admits his business could use some work, too. Old greenhouses behind the shop have fallen into disrepair, he says, and he would like to have at least one of them razed. He decided to concentrate on the fence first, however, because it's more visible.

"My business is still strong. I get a lot of phone orders, and traffic is heavy on this street," he says.

"I just wish the neighborhood would help a little more. Businesses here on the south side really depend on the neighborhood, and we need the neighbors to help keep an eye out and respect our property."