Axe falls on Meadows

By Michael Edwards
Contributing Writer
Columbus Post

The once regal Beverly Manor, constructed in 1951 to house workers at what is now the Defense Supply Center, became Chesterfield Apartments, then Greenbrier, and finally Woodland Meadows, is no more.
Franklin County Environmental Judge Harland H. Hale declared the complex a nuisance in December 2006 and gave the owner until last February to bring the property up to code. He didn’t or couldn’t, and as a result, Hale gave the city permission to bulldoze the property.
For many nearby residents and homeowners, the wrecking ball could not have come too soon.
“ The rotting core that was left of the complex after it closed adequately symbolizes what we (the residents) felt living next to ‘Uzi Alley,’” said Lowell Avenue resident Robert Dirke. “To say it’s in
‘ total disarray and disrepair’ is an understatement.”
Dirke, a retired laborer from the nearby Defense Construction Supply Center, would know. He lived in the complex when it was Beverly Manor shortly after graduating from high school and getting a job on the base.
It’s easy to understand if it seems like the complex has always been there but it hasn’t. As the base grew, so did the area and the need for housing.
The U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps made the first purchase of land, 281 acres, to construct a government military installation in April, 1918. Primarily a combination of swamp and farmland, the site was selected because it afforded immediate access to three railroad lines, which are still in use today.
Named the Columbus Quartermaster Reserve Depot, the 281.7-acre facility was used to facilitate the routing of equipment for overseas shipment. Due to increased activity at the installation, expansions were made during both WWII and the Korean War. Some of the warehouses were turned into secured barracks to house prisoners of war.
As the needs of the base grew, military and civilian jobs were plentiful; housing, on the other hand, was not. Thus, the Beverly Manor complex was built as government housing for the influx of workers.
In January 1996, DCSC was merged with the Defense Electronics Supply Center formerly of Dayton, Ohio, to arrive at its 14th name change, the Defense Supply Center Columbus. The base’s 1996 reorganization and its merger with DESC was a product of the 1993 Base Realignment and Closure Commission’s ordered merger.
The former Beverly Manor, no longer a government housing for base workers, was going through its own series of changes and not for the better.
By this time, the housing complex had become Greenbriar Apartments and had long lost its allure, earning the nickname ‘Uzi Alley.’ In 1998, PM Group from Brighton, Mich., renamed the complex Woodland Meadows Apartments after buying it for $11.5 million and pledged to focus on affordable housing and to spend more than $30 million on renovations, only to go bankrupt.
In November 2002, Amigo Real Estate of Los Angeles, led by company President Jorge Newbery, buys Woodland Meadows for $12.2 million at a court-ordered auction after PM Group filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001. Many local developers declined to bid more than $6 million and marveled that Newberry would pay so much for the 122 dying three-story brick buildings.
A December 2004 ice storm knocked out the power and left water lines to freeze and break, starting the complex’s death spiral; however, crime was a problem long before.
“ I lived through civil war, and I thought, ‘Finally, I am someplace safe,’” said Adar Mohamed, 20, a Somali refugee. “Twice in two months, thieves entered my apartment and stole everything – clothes, food, furniture... all they left were clothes hangers,” Mohamed said.
Newberry maintains that his problems began with the ice storm. Many residents publicly disagreed.
In November 2005, the city issued orders to vacate six buildings after finding structural problems and faulty wiring. A court settlement a month later gave Newbery almost six months to fix up more than 800 units. Woodland Meadows began bricking up 279 first-floor units. Again, to no avail.
In January 2006, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced it was pulling rent subsidies from the complex because of failure to “maintain the project in a decent, safe and sanitary condition.” Newbery tried to retain tenants who pay full rent by using the few buildings the city has deemed safe. It would have left approximately 100 renters amid the 1,100 apartments that sprawl over 52 acres. Essentially, HUD’s withdrawal is the nail in the coffin to the complex since due to poor, unsafe living conditions few were willing to live there if they could afford other options.
Vacant since last summer, the city has set aside $2.4 million for the demolition and will put a lien on the property for that cost.
Loewendick Excavation and Construction President David Loewendick said concrete sidewalks and slabs will be crushed and recycled. All of the asphalt removed from the streets will be milled and recycled. They’ll sell as scrap any remaining metal. The bricks will be used as fill on the property, which will be graded and seeded. Roofing and other materials will be hauled to landfills.
The trees will stay.
“ It was developed from a grass plain and I am glad to see it return to a grassy plain,” said Dirke.

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