It is a multi-headed hydra, this process of wrestling a property through and out the other end of foreclosure. Mostly we root for the owner of the property to best the evil bank. We crave happy endings.
But what is the happy ending on Harrison Street where several prime commercial buildings have collapsed into foreclosure — and one has simply collapsed — due to the bad fortune and worse instincts of the Kleronomos family.
This fight is occurring on multiple levels simultaneously. The court-appointed receiver is working diligently to start construction — could be this week — to restore the façade at 210 Harrison St. The village is working smartly in tandem with the architect, contractor and receiver to make this building whole by spring.
That’s all good.
It’s what may be happening behind the curtain that worries us. Having owned a majority of the core of the Arts District since the 1930s Depression-era, the Kleronomos family of River Forest will most certainly cling to these decayed properties and use whatever dwindling tools are at its disposal to reclaim them.
We have seen it time and again over decades as the family made the minimum, final-day payment to keep their buildings from going to a tax auction, has done the bare minimum in repairs to keep the village from condemning a building. There is some daffy, driven psychology that keeps the family from just, finally, walking away from its failure on the street. We don’t pretend to understand it.
What we do know is that having a handsome new façade on one building and seeing businesses return to their storefronts is, while satisfying, only the visible portion of the battle.
Village government, the commercial and residential neighbors who have made this neighborhood work against the odds, the receiver and the courts need to be vigilant in making the final victory in this case a positive change in ownership of all the Kleronomos properties along Harrison Street.