MILWAUKEE — Neighbors in Milwaukee's Harbor View neighborhood are raising safety concerns about a boarded-up warehouse building just one block away from where another warehouse partially collapsed earlier this week.
The Wisconsin Cold Storage Company building, located near Water and Florida streets, caught fire last year. The building's roof remains visibly charred.
TMJ4 News reporter Ryan Jenkins spoke to neighbors about those safety concerns in the video below:
Banjo Zysk, a neighbor in the area, said there are multiple vacant properties nearby.
"There's already like four buildings that, at least I can think of, that are vacant or abandoned in this area," Zysk said.
Zysk said the condition of those buildings is troubling.
"I feel like that brings a lot of worry to me. I think it should bring a little bit more worry to people who live in this area," Zysk said.
Neighbor Ann Hannah said the city has a responsibility to act.
"I think it's the city's duty to protect the people in the neighborhood and some of those eyesores, so I think they should work with the owners of those to get them to safe standards or to take them down," she said.
Hannah also questioned why the same standards applied to the collapsed building aren't being applied to others nearby.
"Between the owners who have the building that fell down and the others in the neighborhood, I think if they're forcing a raze order on that building, it seems like they should apply the same standards to the others in the neighborhood."
TMJ4's Ryan Jenkins reached out to the city's Department of Neighborhood Services, which enforces city codes. The department provided a statement saying periodic inspections are completed to identify public safety issues and that the Wisconsin Cold Storage Company building has passed its most recent fire inspection. Additional inspections are planned before the end of this year.
However, the Department of Neighborhood Services said it is up to the fire department to request a raze order if it determines one is necessary.
Jenkins reached out to the fire department for further clarification but didn't hear back immediately.
Some neighbors say it is time for the boarded-up buildings to come down to make way for new development.
"I think that area across the river is ripe for development," Hannah said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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