SHELBY, Ohio – A portion of the building that housed Napoli’s Pizza collapsed overnight Thursday, possibly damaging the bridge in the process.
The building, located at 12 W. Main in Shelby, was deemed unstable earlier this week. Thursday night’s heavy rain possibly led to the building’s demise. “The storm, the water,” said Richland County Treasurer Bart Hamilton at the scene Friday morning, “the building was already unstable.”
Earlier this week, building owner Greg Beard said that a pylon underneath the building dating back to the 1800s gave way over the weekend, resulting in a crack at the east end of the building.
Richland County Commissioner Gary Utt was also on the scene Friday morning. He said that the next step would be having the building torn down with help from the Richland County Land Bank.
Hamilton noted electricity and water to the building had been shut off and the gas was being shut off this morning. An excavation company will be onsite later today, he said.
“Some of the debris is in the water. You can see the top of the bridge and the railing is damaged. I’m not sure what damage is done to the actual bridge and the sidewalk, we can’t really tell yet,” said Hamilton.
The portion of Main Street in front of the building has been closed since Tuesday due to safety concerns, but that hasn’t stopped some people.
The Shelby Police Department’s Facebook page noted that trespassers bypassing the police tape would be arrested. “We aren’t playing,” said a Facebook post by Shelby Police Chief M. Lance Combs.
“After numerous complaints about people walking on the sidewalk past Napoli’s in spite of the barricades yesterday, I notified our officers of the problem and told them to make arrests. Following that order, two people were arrested for trespass and one was found in possession of heroin.
“The reasons for closing off both vehicular and pedestrian traffic should be abundantly clear based on this partial collapse last night which also damaged the bridge,” the post continued.
Shelby Police Sergeant David Mack was onsite Friday morning and instructed pedestrians to stay behind the tape. He said officers would be on site for the foreseeable future.
“People are just not recognizing the hazard,” he said. “There’s a lot of stress on that front post right now and the whole front wall is bowed. You just never know.”
