A backhoe has begun chomping into some of the eight Park Crest Apartment buildings slated for demolition in north Omaha to cheers from city and civic leaders.
By Thanksgiving, two-thirds of the complex across from Fontenelle Park's western ridge will be down. Ownership then will transfer from an Omaha family to the NorthStar Foundation. Both entities have declined to discuss purchase price.
The foundation, housed on the Omaha Home for Boys Campus west of Park Crest, pledges to find a use for the land compatible with its mission of helping at-risk inner-city males. Eight of nine Park Crest buildings, which front North 48th Street and Sahler Street, will be razed. One building, a five-story, 45-unit building at 4842 Sprague St. will remain standing.
NorthStar hasn't decided yet what it will do with the land and the remaining building, but the demolition of what long has been a trouble spot will show the neighborhood “tangible, positive action that sends a clear message that things are happening,” said Scott Hazelrigg, who heads both the foundation and the Omaha Home for Boys.
The foundation and the Home for Boys are separate entities with the same address. When Hazelrigg became president of the Home for Boys last year, he brought the foundation along.
The foundation leases the eastern portion of the Home for Boys property at 52nd Street and Ames Avenue and erected a $300,000 Outward Bound high-ropes course there. The foundation's presence is part of Hazelrigg's overall goal of opening the campus to the north Omaha community. The apartments sit east of that ropes course.
The complex had evolved into housing for the poor, where qualifying families could use federal rent subsidies administered by the Omaha Housing Authority.
But the high-density buildings became magnets for crime.
The Agarwal family owned the apartments in recent years but sold them in 2004 for about $1.8 million to CGC Properties, a limited-liability company linked to an out-of-town landlord who also had bought another north Omaha trouble spot: the Wintergreen Park Apartments north of 51st Street and Sorensen Parkway.
In 2004 and 2005, the number of building code violations at both properties skyrocketed and the city went after the landlord, Avram Cimerring, who was convicted on misdemeanor charges related to Wintergreen and sentenced in 2006 to six months in jail. Cimerring, who was connected to companies that owned both properties, appealed and lost.
He failed to appear for his latest court hearing and a warrant has been issued for his arrest, said Glenn Shapiro, his attorney from that case. Shapiro said he has not heard from Cimerring in two years.
Cimerring's company contested that it was to blame. In court documents, it cited the unexpected termination of federal rent subsidies as a reason there was no money to put into the property.
The Agarwals eventually foreclosed and got Park Crest back. Arun Agarwal said he then struggled with what to do. He said the buildings were so decayed that renovation would be expensive and the complex would require federal subsidy.
Agarwal said he has turned down higher bids on Park Crest because he believes in Hazelrigg's vision.
“It's nice to have a deal where everybody wins, where everybody's happy including the city,” Agarwal said.
Happy is an understatement for Kevin Denker, the city's chief housing inspector.
“We spent I don't know how many man hours over the years monitoring that complex,” Denker said. “We're pretty relieved and pretty excited.”
Contact the writer:
444-1136, erin.grace@owh.com
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