City Moves Against Apartments : Wilmington: Lawsuit would force the owner to fix problems at drug-plagued Harbor Vista complex or shut down.

City officials have filed suit in an effort to shut down a 189-unit Wilmington apartment complex they say is controlled almost completely by drug dealers.

The five-building Harbor Vista Apartments in the 400 block of Wilmington Avenue has become “a veritable shopping market of drugs,” Deputy City Atty. Henry Burr said. In a little more than a year, 116 narcotics arrests were made there.

Police have also made dozens of other arrests at the complex for charges ranging from assault with a deadly weapon and burglary to child-beating.

“The place has just literally gotten out of control,” Burr said. “We’re trying to get the current owner to either do something with it or have the court close the place down completely.”

Owner Paul Lawless has filed for bankruptcy, Burr said. Lawless, who has an unlisted telephone number, could not be reached for comment. Burr did not know what attorney will represent Lawless.

Although the complex was deteriorating when Lawless bought it in 1990, Burr said, the decline accelerated after the sale.

City officials said they met with Lawless several times to demand that he install security gates, replace broken windows, secure damaged doors and install adequate lighting.

Currently, the buildings are littered with trash, covered with graffiti and filled with squatters, officials said.

“It was spooky when I went down there to see it. There’s no control of who goes in and who goes out,” Burr said. “Everywhere you look there are folks hanging out, watching you from the nooks and the crannies and the hallways and the corners.

“The owner just doesn’t care, and he doesn’t have the management experience to deal with it.”

The city filed the narcotics abatement lawsuit to ask a judge either to order Lawless to comply with the demands or close down the complex. Fewer than 25 of the 189 units are occupied by legal tenants.

Burr said he hopes that the building could eventually be turned into low-income housing through the efforts of either a private charity or government agency, or both.

“Our goal is not to remove housing stock,” he said. “Our goal is to reform and rehabilitate the property. I just don’t know who . . . that entity that can help us would be. They will be our white knight.”