1914 Vine St.

Jymi Bolden

Address: 1914 Vine St., Over-the-Rhine

Owner: Navneet Sachdev

Purchase date: 1984

Current property value: $2,900 — down from $4,900 in 1998

Year built: 1860

Gross area: 1,060 square feet

Comments: The building at 1914 Vine St. has multiple housing code violations, according to the city of Cincinnati Department of Buildings and Inspections, which has deemed it unsafe and unsanitary.

The city has ordered the building kept vacant until it is rehabbed and has ordered owner Navneet Sachdev to obtain a vacant building license.

David Schneider, a supervisor in the buildings and inspections department, says the structure has been empty for more than a decade.

"Basically for the last 10 or 12 years it's been pretty much a vacant building," he says.

Schneider says city staff had entered the building and break the windows because panes of glass were hanging over the street.

When Sachdev purchased the building, it housed a church on the first floor and a tailor upstairs. The man who ran the church later died and the tailor moved out.

Sachdev says he closed the building because of a lack of police protection in the neighborhood. He had a gun pointed at him three times and once was hit on the head with a gun.

Sachdev, an architect, would like to see Over-the-Rhine become a mixed-income neighborhood. He says complex social issues need to be addressed to encourage people to move back to Over-the-Rhine.

Insurance companies don't want to issue policies for buildings in Over-the-Rhine, it's difficult to get a loan from the bank to renovate the buildings and it's hard to attract tenants, Sachdev says.

"With all the vacancy all over the Cincinnati area, be honest to yourself and if there's vacancy somewhere else, why would someone come to a high crime area?" he says.

Sachdev says he gave away three of his buildings because he couldn't handle the problems they brought him. Sachdev served six months in jail for previous building code violations, according to Schneider.