A few weeks back we reported on the sorry state of affairs with Tasty Dog, the venerable hot dog stand operating out a village-owned property but now a half-year behind in paying its rent to taxpayers. This week we report more fully on the other half of Tasty Dog’s nightmare financial scenario: It owes Cook County some $244,000 in back property taxes.
We’d allow that if you go back to the convoluted start of how it happened that Oak Park built a hot dog stand and leased it long-term to Tasty Dog, that the village owns a share of the confusion over the property tax issue. But any doubt as to who owed what to whom was resolved many years back and the taxes due the county remain outstanding and are on Tasty Dog’s tab.
Taken together you have a $300,000 hole that would take a lot of cheese fries to fill, an eviction procedure moving through the courts and, seemingly, an inevitable outcome that will see Tasty Dog close and the northwest corner of Lake and Euclid return fully to village control.
The owners of Tasty Dog have made noises that the village has been a bad landlord. But we’d take the side of Village President Anan Abu-Taleb who responded to that criticism by saying, “Yes, we’ve been bad landlords. We let you get away with not paying rent to our taxpayers for six months.”
So, what happens next? Could be several routes. The village has backed in to owning a good-sized parcel on a highly marketable corner. Maybe the Starbucks across the street wants a drive-through. Or the site could be cleared for a mixed-use retail and condo project which would complete the quartet of relatively new residential projects at the intersection.
Our point is that it is time to move forward, without any drama and without any unnecessary delay.
Investing in Harrison St.
What had become the tough-looking former home to LaMajada, the long-time Mexican spot in the Oak Park Arts District on Harrison Street, was given a new start on Friday when two local developers bought the half-block long stretch from the bank which had foreclosed on it.
A few weeks back we reported that Mike Streit and Adam Friedberg had purchased a commercial building in River Forest and are currently converting it into an incubator space for foodie entrepreneurs called River Forest Kitchen. Now they’ve purchased the moribund LaMajada, just one of the derelict properties which clog the potential of the arts district to blossom into its full potential.
The bulk of those long empty properties belong to the Kleronomos family and continue to wend their way through seemingly endless foreclosure proceedings. But that is a sad story for another week.
Today we celebrate the hopefulness of the Friedberg/Streit purchase. In an interview Monday, Freidberg said the “for lease” sign posted Friday has engendered several calls already from potential tenants. The space, he said, could be subdivided – it was a long series of vital storefronts decades ago before LaMajada, in its heyday, gradually expanded to fill the entire space, it could be leased in its entirety or could be razed for new development. Critically, he said the partners want to talk to neighbors, both residential and retail, as they consider their options.
This is a good day for Harrison Street.