An old South Akron apartment building caught fire on Tuesday night and burned down, nearly a year after the forced evacuation of its residents amid concerns that it could imminently collapse.
The destruction of the condemned 111-year-old building at 1431 S. Main St. comes amid a legal battle between the City of Akron, whose Housing Appeals Board ordered that it be demolished last year, and its embattled owner and landlord, Robert Johnson.
Johnson took to the Summit County Court of Common Pleas to claim the order was unfair and appealed for the right to sell the building to somebody who could fix it. The building was uninsured, his attorney told Signal Akron on Wednesday.
The destruction of the apartment complex, long home to weekly cash-paying tenants who had few options for stable housing elsewhere, throws a wrench into a civil court case filed this summer after the Housing Appeals Board deemed it beyond repair…