A massive fire tore through a vacant building on Euclid Avenue in East Cleveland Friday afternoon, pulling in firefighters from five departments and shutting down a stretch of the busy corridor for hours. No injuries were reported.
Fire officials said the blaze broke out around 4 p.m. near the intersection of Euclid Avenue and Van Buren Road, according to WKYC. The East Cleveland Fire Department said the whole building was in flames, and crews from University Heights, Mayfield Heights, Cleveland, Cleveland Heights and Richmond Heights all responded to assist at the scene, the station reported.
A separate News 5 Cleveland report published in 2023 described a Monday-morning fire at the intersection of Lockwood and Euclid avenues. Cleveland 19 reported the current fire near Euclid Avenue and Van Buren Road and said East Cleveland Dispatch had closed Euclid between Doan and Wymore avenues. The cause of the current fire had not been determined, WKYC reported.
A Building Already Sitting Empty
Cleveland 19 identified the burning structure as the Jacques building, located at 14470 Euclid Avenue, which houses storefronts and apartments. The outlet reported that the building appeared to be vacant. The same account from WKYC's report described the building's upper floors as containing apartment units that were currently unoccupied, with vacant storefronts occupying the lower floors.
The blaze adds to a pattern of fires hitting empty structures across East Cleveland. In a separate report, News 5 Cleveland detailed how officials and residents in one three-block area of the city have been grappling with growing illegal dumping, arson fires and vacant burned-out buildings. Council President Twon Billings told the station that “every building back here has been set on fire,” describing the scale of the problem in that stretch of the city.
A National Fire Academy report found that vacant-building fires made up a substantial share of East Cleveland's overall fire activity in past years, averaging 25.3 such fires annually between 2006 and 2008 — 36.3% of the city's total building fires in that span — and nine vacant-building fires in just the first six months of 2009, or 31% of that period's total, according to the federal report.
Other Empty Buildings Loom Over The City
East Cleveland's struggle with abandoned structures extends beyond burned-out storefronts. Huron Place Apartments, a vacant 13-story building, has stood empty for years after once serving as a 254-unit affordable housing complex, according to a 2017 report from Ideastream Public Media, which noted that only a shell of the building remained at the time and estimated demolition costs around $1.9 million.
More recently, East Cleveland City Council approved an agreement in April with the Cuyahoga Land Bank to share the expense of tearing Huron Place down, though Cleveland 19 reported the final price of the demolition had not yet been determined. Council Vice President Terrie Richardson said at the time that she hoped demolition would begin before the end of the year, per the same report.
Residents were advised to avoid the area around Friday's fire while crews worked the scene. No further updates on the cause of the blaze or the condition of the Jacques building have been released.
