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.

An apartment building at 1431 S. Main St., which was evacuated and condemned by the city last year, caught fire on Tuesday night. By Wednesday morning, Akron firefighters were still working to finish extinguishing the blaze. An appeal from the building's owner is still open in the Summit County Court of Common Pleas. It seeks to reverse a City of Akron order to demolish the building.
An apartment building at 1431 S. Main St., which was evacuated and condemned by the city last year, caught fire on Tuesday night. By Wednesday morning, Akron firefighters were still working to finish extinguishing the blaze. An appeal from the building’s owner is still open in the Summit County Court of Common Pleas. It seeks to reverse a City of Akron order to demolish the building. (Doug Brown / Signal Akron)

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.

Both sides are waiting on a ruling from a judge over the validity of the demolition order – Johnson would have been on the hook to pay for the demolition, barring a court order, according to a Housing Appeals Board meeting in June. 

The massive fire also comes three weeks after another fire at the supposed-to-be abandoned building, when a neighbor witnessed a car speed away as flames became visible from the first floor. 

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.
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. (Doug Brown / Signal Akron)

The building was also frequently broken into a number of times since the building was shuttered last year, with some accused of stealing from the property and some indicating they were in there because they had nowhere else to stay, according to police reports and interviews. 

Firefighters were dispatched to the fire at the three-story, 6,780-square-foot building at 9:59 p.m. on Tuesday. A video posted by WEWS journalist Mike Vielhaber shortly after 11 p.m. shows the entire top floor and the southern section of the lower floors engulfed in flames.

A photograph from the back side of the building posted by the Akron Fire Department on Facebook shows flames coming out of the ground-floor unit previously occupied by the building’s owner.

Fire crews work to douse a massive fire at an old South Akron apartment building at 1431 S. Main St., 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 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.
Fire crews work to douse a massive fire at an old South Akron apartment building at 1431 S. Main St., 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 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. (Doug Brown / Signal Akron)

On late Wednesday morning, as the Akron Fire Department worked to extinguish a still-burning fire in the heap of smoldering rubble, firefighters told Signal Akron that an excavation crew was on its way to knock down the remaining sections of the building — only a portion of the front and back walls remained standing. 

The AFD said on Wednesday afternoon that no injuries were reported.

Like the January fire, the cause of the Tuesday night blaze is not yet known and may never be known, said AFD Acting Chief Scott Pascu. Pascu explained determining the cause of a fire is more difficult when firefighters can’t enter a building because of structural instability concerns, even without fire damage. With the building in rubble, investigators will have to rely on witnesses and other non-physical evidence they can gather.

Residents of this apartment building at 1431 S. Main. St. in Akron were evacuated in February after the building's front facade partially collapsed, dropping bricks and debris onto the sidewalk and roadway below.
Residents of this apartment building at 1431 S. Main. St. in Akron were evacuated in February after the building’s front facade partially collapsed, dropping bricks and debris onto the sidewalk and roadway below. (Susan Zake / Signal Akron)

“Unfortunately, with the state of the building and the collapse, it makes investigating a little more difficult,” Pascu said Wednesday evening. “It’s going to be ‘undetermined’ until we find some conclusive evidence.”

Fire will be financially devastating for owner, attorney says

The building is not insured, according to attorney Stephen Hanudel, who represents owner Robert Johnson. The insurance policy lapsed last year, he said, when Johnson could no longer afford to pay for it after the building’s tenants were forced out and stopped paying rent there.

He said the Tuesday fire will be even more financially devastating for Johnson. Hanudel said he was upset by the implication made by some people on social media that his client could have been involved in the fire. 

A pile of rubble remains behind after a massive fire at an old South Akron apartment building at 1431 S. Main St., 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 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.
A pile of rubble remains behind after a massive fire at an old South Akron apartment building at 1431 S. Main St., 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 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. (Doug Brown / Signal Akron)

Fire and building inspectors who responded to the building’s partial facade collapse last February found other significant unaddressed code violations, including a dangerous back stairwell and inoperable fire panels. 

No one has been allowed to stay there since — legally — causing stress among many of the tenants who had little money (many paid with cash, by the week, without a lease agreement) and few other options.

Many of the building’s tenants were on the sex offender registry, which further limited where they could live, even if they had the money to do so. 

Attorney suspects arson is the fire cause

On Wednesday, Hanudel said all the building’s utilities, like gas and electricity, have long been shut off. He said the size of the flames and speed with which they overtook the building indicated to him that the fire was set intentionally. He’s hoping for a full investigation by the fire and police departments, which he said his client would cooperate with. 

A pile of rubble remains behind after a massive fire at an old South Akron apartment building at 1431 S. Main St., 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 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.
Icicles coat the utility poles at the corner of South Main Street and Brighton Drive in South Akron at the site of a massive fire that burned down an old apartment building at 1431 S. Main St., 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 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. (Doug Brown / Signal Akron)

“I’d love to know who did it and why,” he said. “It just seemed to me that something of this size and magnitude, that this was intentionally set and whoever did this wanted the building to come down.”

Johnson, when his insurance lapsed, was also facing financial strain from divorce proceedings and the defense of a 2024 kidnapping and assault charge that was scheduled to go to trial last summer. The prosecutor dismissed the case days before trial because the alleged victim was “unavailable” to testify, records show. 

Johnson, who spent more than 30 years in prison for a murder conviction, also claimed that $65,000 in cash was stolen from his office when he was in custody for that arrest. 

Ice coats the pile of rubble that remains behind after a massive fire at an old South Akron apartment building at 1431 S. Main St., 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 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.
Ice coats the pile of rubble that remains behind after a massive fire at an old South Akron apartment building at 1431 S. Main St., 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 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. (Doug Brown / Signal Akron)

In addition to frequent break-ins to the boarded-up building, police and fire records corroborate neighbor accounts of another significant, though less destructive, fire less than three weeks ago in the area on the first floor on the southeast corner of the building previously occupied by Johnson. 

Michelle Weekley, who can see the back of the building and its parking lot from her home, told Signal Akron that, just before midnight on Jan. 16, she heard a massive boom coming from the apartment complex and thought it sounded like a gunshot. Weekley stepped outside and noticed a fire starting at the back corner of the building and a car parked next to it. 

“And the car sat there for a minute until the flames got a little bigger and then they just took off,” Weekley said.

Government Reporter (he/him)
Doug Brown covers all things connected to the government in the city. He strives to hold elected officials and other powerful figures accountable to the community through easily digestible stories about complex issues. Prior to joining Signal Akron, Doug was a communications staffer at the ACLU of Oregon, news reporter for the Portland Mercury, staff writer for Cleveland Scene, and writer for Deadspin.com, among other roles. He has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Hiram College and a master’s degree in journalism from Kent State University.