Youngstown sues Enbridge and contractors over 2024 Realty Building

The City of Youngstown filed a lawsuit in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court accusing Enbridge Gas Co., its affiliates, the building’s owners, managers and a contractor of negligence that led to the May 28, 2024 explosion at the former Realty Tower [1]. The suit seeks damages for public‑ and private‑property loss, emergency‑response costs and other harms caused by the blast.

Key takeaways

• The complaint names Enbridge Gas Ohio, multiple Enbridge subsidiaries, Yo Properties 47 LLC, LY Property Management LLC and GreenHeart Companies LLC as defendants [1].
• The explosion was traced to a scrap‑removal crew cutting an active natural‑gas line that had been incorrectly documented as abandoned [2][3].
• One person, Akil Drake, a Chase Bank employee, was killed and several others were injured; his family later settled for $6 million [1][3].
• The blast forced evacuation of 23 apartments, the demolition of the 13‑story tower, and temporary closure of nearby buildings, including the Stambaugh Building and International Towers [1][4].
• The city reports over $25,000 in immediate damages and seeks reimbursement for emergency response and remediation costs, with total damages to be determined at trial [3].

Lawsuit details and alleged negligence

City senior assistant law director Robert Buch filed the complaint a day before the two‑year anniversary of the disaster, citing two counts of negligence against Enbridge and its affiliates and two counts against Yo Properties 47, LY Property Management and GreenHeart [1]. The filing alleges that the defendants failed to properly deactivate, secure, and document the gas line, and that they did not warn contractors or municipal officials about its status [2]. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the line was old, rusted, lacked active‑gas markings and had been misidentified as inactive, leading the GreenHeart‑hired crew to saw into it [1][2].

GreenHeart, owned by Brian Angelili of Yo Properties 47, was contracted by the city for $140,133 to relocate utility lines without a competitive bid, a decision later criticized after the explosion [1]. The scrap‑metal crew working in the basement cut the pipe three times, believing it contained no gas, which triggered the catastrophic blast [1]. The explosion destroyed the 13‑story building, killed Drake, injured several others, and forced the evacuation of all 23 residential units in the tower [1][3].

Aftermath and city costs

In the weeks following the blast, the city ordered the immediate closure of the adjacent Stambaugh Building and evacuated International Towers, a senior‑high‑rise with about 170 tenants, for several weeks until the site was deemed safe [1][4]. Demolition of the Realty Tower began in late summer and was completed on September 25, 2024, taking twice as long as expected [1]. The incident also damaged Market Street and East Federal Street, requiring roughly $700,000 in repairs to roads, sidewalks, utilities and landscaping, with the latter reopening in early December [1].