Community Corner
Scaffolds a Hassle! Tenants Outraged at Myrtle Ave. Landlord
The owner of a building at Myrtle Avenue and Washington Avenue promised the scaffolding would be removed almost seven months ago.
Residents and business owners are fed up with the scaffolding around their building at the corner of Washington and Myrtle avenues that they say has become a permanent fixture on an otherwise well-maintained block.
A couple living in the building even said that they were assured by the landlord that the eyesore would be coming off two weeks after they moved in — seven months ago!
The owner of the property is the Almat Group.
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Officials from The Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership — which helps orchestrate improvements along the corridor — have been trying to encourage the landlord to fix the building since it was hit with a full vacate order in April because the façade was literally separating from the building.
The landlord then fixed the immediate problem and set up the scaffolding, but has been hard to reach since.
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“At this point it’s been four or five months since we heard from them,” said Blaise Backer, the executive director of the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership.
Residents are much more frustrated. They have filed eleven complaints with the Department of Buildings. The owners have also been hit with $27,400 in fines from the Department of Buildings, according to online records.
Mercadante added that after some time lights were finally installed for nighttime visibility and safety under the scaffolding near his front door.
For residents the problem is now mostly aesthetic, but for Pratt Wine & Liquor Store, located at the corner, the blue steel bars are obscuring their storefront.
“I’ve only seen the landlord once,” said liquor store employee Jenny Zheny. “A lot of people ask what’s in the store because they can’t see from the outside. It’s bad for business.”
Zheny added that the storeowner talked to the landlord once and wasn’t able to ascertain when the scaffolding would be coming down.
Numerous calls made to Almat group went unreturned, and landlord Uche Alozie’s personal answering machine indicates that he is out of the country.
“They seem to have bigger and better projects,” Mercadante said. “I think everyone would like to see the scaffolding go.”
Updated Feb. 9 an earlier version of this article misspelled the name of Blaise Backer, the Executive Director of the Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership. Fort Greene Patch regrets the error.
