This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2008, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
OGDEN - Neighbors of the promised Ogden River Project are growing increasingly worried about safety as thieves and transients wander among dozens of boarded-up homes awaiting demolition.
Crooks come at night to strip aluminum siding from the houses or to steal stoves, water heaters, copper pipes, doorknobs. One abandoned home caught fire in May. Neighbors were told it was a blaze set by transients.
"It scares us all because none of them are boarded up tight," said Jeff Pritchard, who lives on 18th Street, across from a row of vacant homes, with weeds and tall grass blocking the paths. "What if someone were to take someone's kid in there? If somebody were to be killed . . . they wouldn't know if for six months."
It has been nearly a year since California investors Gadi and Miri Leshem, with the city's help, began snatching up more than 50 houses set to be demolished to make way for the next phase of the Ogden River Project. The city envisions high-density housing, shops and restaurants along the river, which cuts through downtown, north of the LDS temple.
Most of the owners and renters moved out late last year, although a few houses remain occupied. On Childs Avenue, three owners still are waiting to sell their homes, even as plywood covers the doors and windows of houses up and down the street.
George P. Welsh Jr. said the nearly abandoned neighborhood now seems to be fair game for thieves. His aluminum ladder was stolen from the top of his grape arbor.
"Anything out in the open, they take," Welsh said.
Gadi Leshem, president of Cover-All Inc., a Chatsworth, Calif., company that installs carpets and other floor materials nationwide, did not return several phone messages. He and his wife own Ogden Riverfront Development.
In October 2006, California charged Gadi Leshem and two Cover-all executives with insurance fraud in connection with worker-compensation payments. A preliminary hearing is pending in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Keith Morey, Ogden's community-development director, said he is working with Leshem on a management plan that will determine which houses should be knocked down first.
"Our hope is he begins that process of taking those down right away," Morey said. Leshem has not been given a deadline for demolition to begin, he said.
Meantime, Leshem has hired a new contractor to patrol the area, mow the lawns and ensure the homes remain sealed, Morey said.
The city has been planning the Ogden River Project for eight years. It secured options to buy dozens of homes, then turned them over to the Leshems to execute.
"Hopefully, they'll do something soon," said Maria Hernandez, who has lived on 18th Street for 21 years. She no longer allows her 6-year-old granddaughter to play out front, across from the abandoned houses. "I don't let her out in front because I'm scared."
Like Pritchard, Hernandez said she has seen automobiles - one was a Ford Expedition - park outside abandoned houses all night while the drivers are inside.
"It's really scary to live around here now, especially at night," said Beatriz Perez, whose two children now play in the backyard, away from the boarded-up homes.
Shannon Sandoval, who continues to rent one of the houses destined for demolition, said her children called her at work recently to say kids were breaking windows next door.
"It makes me nervous when everyone else moved out and we're the only ones here," Sandoval said.
Katherine Seager has lived on Childs Avenue for most of her life and now wonders when the Leshems will buy her property.
"We told them we wanted bought out in the spring," Seager said. "If they're going to start it, finish it."