James Bushouse isn’t happy about Oak Park’s Renew the Avenue project, the sewer and streetscape project that has long been planned for Oak Park Avenue, the street bisecting town.
It’s not just that the street closures which will run through Thanksgiving will affect his tenants in the building he owns on the southeast corner of Oak Park Avenue and Lake Street. Bushouse also argues that the village is effectively practicing eminent domain in seeking to fill in the area beneath the vaulted sidewalks adjacent to his historic building with concrete. That, he says, will ruin a part of the village’s history that should be preserved.
Bushouse is seeking support for his position from state historic preservation officials. But if that support does not come through, he is threatening to sue the village to stop its plans.
The massive and costly sewer and water system project has already begun on blocks north and south of the Hemingway District commercial area. The current timeline has construction beginning on the 100 blocks of North and South Oak Park Avenue in late March or early April. Any delay could make it difficult to complete the work before the holiday shopping season which is critical to small businesses.
The village had acknowledged in a January interview that there was no legal agreement in place regarding the 200-foot stretch of vaulted sidewalks outside Bushouse’s Scoville Block building but that discussions were ongoing.
Asked for comment after Bushouse told Wednesday Journal of his intention to block the impact on his building, village officials chose not to allow interviews with either Greg Smith, the village attorney, or Bill McKenna, the village engineer.
Instead it issued a statement to the paper which read in part, “The village remains committed to working with all stakeholders and moving forward with a long-awaited project that balances preservation, progress and the long-term vitality of the Hemingway District and Oak Park as a whole. The importance of the project requires the village to keep it on schedule in order for the public to enjoy the benefits of the project at the earliest opportunity.”
Moses Valdez, president of the volunteer Hemingway District Business Association, said, “We rely on this project getting done in a timely manner. We’re a community. My thinking is, there are challenges in life, but instead of being upset about it, how can we make it a better community for everyone?”
A landlord in the village since the 1970s, Bushouse said he stopped buying property in the 1980s when it became apparent to him that the village wasn’t interested in historic preservation.
This particular building, he said, is an important piece of Oak Park history.
“The building was planned in 1899 before the village of Oak Park was even incorporated,” he said. “The Scoville family basically built Oak Park. We should be calling it Scovillette.”
Vintage photograph of the Scoville Building in owner James Bushouse’s office on Thursday February 12, 2026 | Todd Bannor 
Detail of the transom of the Scoville Building entrance on Thursday February 12, 2026 
Panoramic photograph of the Scoville Building in owner James Bushouse’s office on Thursday February 12, 2025 | Todd Bannor
On the ground floor, his building is home to tenants such as Mulatta and Billy Bricks. On the floors above, there are apartments for rent. In the basement level, he said, there’s a piece of Oak Park’s past that will be lost to concrete if the village proceeds with its new sidewalk plans.
In that lower level in a vast room filled with mechanicals, vintage furniture and other memorabilia from Oak Park’s past. The original vaulted sidewalk is visible on the west side.
Facing the street, the wall is lined with Joliet limestone. Holding it up are cast iron columns that Bushouse says Scoville imported from France.
“The village wants to fill it all in with light weight concrete,” he said.
He added, “This was a credible, structural system that I’m not going to let be destroyed.”
Bushouse said he is very concerned about what destroying the existing sidewalks will do to the terra cotta marble facades of his building. For that reason, he is engaging an engineer to come up with a cost estimate for the value of those areas. At the same time, he is concerned about the village’s lack of historic awareness.
“I want to continue to tell the story,” he said.
To that end, Bushouse has been seeking the help of the Illinois State Historic Preservation Office to see if they will help him fight the village. However, he is concerned that his contacts in the office are not giving it adequate attention.
Bushouse, who says he just learned of the village’s plans to fill in the basement area of his building six months ago, says the plan is “not just bad engineering, it’s bad government.”
If the state Historic Preservation Office can’t step in, Bushouse says his next step is to sue the village.
“That’s who I am: a steward. I take care of my property.”
