Teen's plunge through floor a reminder of old Reid site's threat
Three Richmond teenagers were exploring inside the former Reid Health hospital buildings just after midnight Saturday when one of them suddenly plunged through the floor.
The 17-year-old's two friends helped him outside where he was met by Richmond Fire Department and Richmond Police Department personnel. An RFD ambulance took the teen to the current Reid Health facility when he complained of lower back pain, and the police officers lectured the three on the dangers of the former hospital's buildings and grounds, said RPD Chief Jim Branum.
Those dangers — and the continued attraction of the buildings for explorers — pose a continued threat of serious injury or death that worries city officials. Luckily, Saturday's incident, the first injury of which Branum has heard, wasn't more serious, but conditions inside the buildings at the Chester Boulevard site only worsen.
"We've predicted that this was going to happen," Branum said. "That's why we don't want people to go in there. We continue to emphasize that people are not to be in that building."
In fact, RPD and RFD have polices that restrict their personnel from entering the building unless there's a threat to a life.
Both agencies continue to be called to the site, however. RPD for trespassers exploring the buildings and grounds and RFD for fires.
RFD has responded to two intentionally set fires within the past six months. The first, on April 18, burned a covered porch outside Jenkins Hall, which is the closest part of the building to Chester Boulevard. The second, on Sept. 9, was contained to three rooms of the second floor of Leeds Tower.
RFD and RPD investigators worked together to arrest three juvenile males in connection with setting the Sept. 9 fire.
Mark Barnhizer, president of Barnhizer & Associates, recently said an anonymous donor approached the company about cleaning up damage from the April fire. He said the company, which also was donating some of the work, planned to remove the burned porch and clean soot off the south face of Jenkins Hall visible from Chester Boulevard.
The cleanup, however, will not protect any buildings from further decay.
"It's just going to continue to deteriorate," Branum said.
The property is among the 261 that will be available during Thursday's Wayne County tax sale, which will begin at 10 a.m. in the Commissioners Chambers in the Wayne County Administration Building, 401 E. Main St. The sale is an auction with bidding for each property starting with all back taxes owed, current year taxes and penalties, any sewer or weed liens, and tax sale costs.
For the three parcels that make up the former hospital's campus, that total comes to just under $900,000, or $897,508.08 to be exact. Those three parcels have a total assessed value of $3,791,300, according to the county's online property tax records.
Reid Health owned and operated a hospital on the site from 1904 to 2008 but has not had a hand in the management or ownership of the site since that time. The land and buildings were sold to Whitewater Living Center LLC in 2006, who then sold the land to Rose City Development LLC in 2008. Rose City, which became Spring Grove Development LLC in 2009 and is owned by two Delaware investors, has since abandoned the property.
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