State of the Ralston not happy tale
To say the recent safety code report on Columbus’ historic Ralston Towers set off some alarms is more than just a grim joke. The report is another troubling revelation about the state of a facility that for years now has housed a largely vulnerable population.
As staff writer Ben Wright reported over the weekend, the Columbus Inspections and Code Department officially declared the century-old Ralston unsafe after finding multiple fire code violations. Department Director John C. Hudgison has given the New Jersey-based owner of the property 90 days to submit a detailed schedule for bringing the building into compliance, or “the city of Columbus will be forced to close this building to prevent occupancy.”
That’s a lot more complicated process, involving a far more complicated human equation, than that official notice might indicate. Hence the more specific directive to Ralston LLC from Fire & EMS Chief Jeff Meyer and Mayor Teresa Tomlinson that Ralston Towers either be brought into code compliance or provisions started to relocate the residents to another location until such time as the building is deemed code compliant.”
These aren’t exactly new problems. Two of the violations — malfunctioning fire panel devices and a defective fire pump — were discovered last June, almost a year ago, and fire alarm and sprinkler problems, among others, were discovered during a test this January.
Those issues, on top of already reported resident complaints about bedbugs and other living condition problems, suggest that “absentee ownership” might in this case be more than just geographical.
Responding to the problem, if the owners don’t, also involves more than just moving “guests” to another inn, which the Ralston hasn’t been since its glory days as the city’s premier hotel in the first half of the 20th century.
The 269-room Ralston is a residential facility under a rental assistance contract with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The poignant response of one longtime resident — “Where are we going to go? I’m not going on any streets. We just ain’t going to live on the streets” — highlights the reality that some of the people who live there have few if any other options if those responsible for taking care of this building, and the people in it, don’t do so.
Ninety days might not seem like much time to property owners in New Jersey, but it’s an eternity to people here in Columbus who don’t know what’s going to happen to the place where some of them have lived for years. And all of these conditions that are overdue to be fixed have been problems for longer than 90 days.
This story was originally published April 24, 2017 at 4:51 PM with the headline "State of the Ralston not happy tale."