Now heâs blocked in.
Blair, a Heights resident and the owner of the Berryhill restaurants, bought a piece of property across from the East 11th Street location in 2007. That same year he purchased another plot of land two lots to the west, and he said his plan at the time was to assemble contiguous lots between Beverly Street and Oxford Street, with the hope of developing it or selling it to someone else who would do the same.
But his vision fizzled out, Blair said, in part because some of those commercial properties cannot be accessed through the alley that runs behind them. The fenced backyards of some of the residential properties on the opposite side of the alley extend through them, essentially blocking off the alley.