PITTSBURGH — Merante Brother’s American-Italian Market in Uptown reopened roughly six months after the family-owned business was forced to close. Their building was heavily damaged when two neighboring businesses collapsed, sending bricks through the market’s ceiling. The market was also inundated with debris and water.
Marco Merante owns the market. He says the buildings next door were on the city’s radar - they were actually on a demolition list.
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“I said it before, it’s like Jenga, it’s going to come down, but nobody stopped it,” Merante tells Channel 11. “There would be bricks on the floor, the building was falling down.”
City records show the buildings that came down both had property inspection scores of one out of four. According to the city, that means the buildings were “structurally intact with no immediate observable danger.”
However, Merante says the buildings were crumbling and when the eye institute was added to UPMC Mercy, a crane operator stopped into his market.
“The crane operator actually told us at that time, there is a hole in that building,” Merante said. “That was a score of one. Four means it needs to be taken down immediately, so I wonder what a four looks like.”
Merante says his family lost hundreds of thousands of dollars from being forced to close. He’s just happy to be able to serve his favorite homemade food to familiar faces.
“It’s definitely great to be a staple back in the neighborhood again,” Merante added. “I missed everyone, I hope they missed us.”
We reached out to the city to ask why the buildings that were crumbling before they collapsed were only rated a one out of four and how many buildings on the demolition list were ahead of these two back in July when they came down. We will let you know when we hear back.
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