The Oak Park apartment building engulfed by a massive fire last week had long been on village officials’ radar over a lengthy record of safety code violations, according to county court records.
The fire, one of the biggest seen in the village in recent years, came just months after Oak Park fire inspectors had warned the building owner of serious fire code violations. Legal records related to the village’s inspections of the property paint a picture of blatant safety violations and squalid conditions that fly in the face of Oak Park’s idyllic suburban reputation.
First responders from the Oak Park Fire Department and other neighboring departments responded to a structure fire at 1239 N. Taylor Ave. at approximately 8:57 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 17, battling the flames through the night for 10 hours straight, with firefighters remaining on scene the following day to manage “spot fires” that continued to burn on the property. No firefighters were injured during the response, which required 4 million gallons of water, according to a Feb. 20 court filing from village attorneys.
The building was unoccupied at the time of the fire.
The central stairway, the third floor and the roof of the building were completely destroyed in the fire, leaving the building vulnerable to collapse, according to that court filing. Oak Park is pursuing an emergency injunction in Cook County housing court for demolition of the structure, village officials said.
The multi-story mixed-use apartment building had 26 residential units and seven spaces designed for commercial tenants, according to court records. OPFD is leading an investigation into the cause of the fire with assistance from Office of the State Fire Marshal, village officials said.
The investigation is ongoing, officials said.
The village has been in court with the building’s owner for much of the last two years after village inspections uncovered a variety of health and safety issues, according to county court records.
“Village staff documented deteriorating building conditions through its Code Compliance, Fire, Health, and other inspection functions from 2023 onward,” Oak Park officials said in a statement. “The village followed a process of progressive enforcement through ticketing and local adjudication. As it became clear that the property owner was not improving the building in response to ticketing, the village began working through the Circuit Court systems to compel the owner to improve the property. Additionally, in the Circuit Court, the village asked for and received an administrative search warrant, limited nuisance abatement authority and appointment of a receiver.”
“The village cannot speculate on any other legal action related to the fire until the investigation is complete,” said the statement.
In a May 2, 2025 safety inspection at the property, Oak Park fire inspector Mark Thompson noted several fire code violations including exposed wiring, a lack of functional fire alarms or any working fire extinguishers, an unsecured gas line, an unmaintained boiler past its legal inspection date and a busted water main in the building’s basement.
Village building inspector Zach Meadows noted a number of additional property standards violations at that time, including a rotting wooden staircase on the backside of the building and a broken door on the ground level that had reportedly given squatters free access to the property, according to legal records.
Shortly after those inspections, the village filed a lawsuit against building owner Sameer Chhabria, an attorney with offices in Downtown Chicago and in north suburban Riverwoods. In a June filing, village attorneys submitted an affidavit from a long-time resident of the apartment building describing conditions inside the property.
She said the building, which had five legal tenant households at the time, hadn’t had hot water for weeks and that the building was mostly being occupied by people without signed leases, according to the legal filing.
“Over the past 20 years I have seen the building decline and it is currently in a state of disrepair,” the resident said. “I do not feel safe in my residential apartment.”
Chhabria told Wednesday Journal in a brief interview this week that the persistent issues with squatters were responsible for the property’s downward spiral. He couldn’t say when those issues had started but said that the squatters’ presence had kept tradespeople from completing needed work on the property, as some contractors refused to work on the building because of it, he said.
Some of the violations found in those inspections remained in place through several months of village litigation, according to legal records. The village of Oak Park obtained a court order in September granting permission for village contractors to make repairs to the property, including installing new fire extinguishers and smoke alarms.
A November fire inspection showed even more worrying issues at the property, including a broken pipe where “wastewater was flowing freely” from the ceiling in the basement just outside the boiler room. The inspection also found open electric boxes throughout the building, stairwells and exit ways blocked with piles of abandoned furniture and “daisy chained” extension cords running from unit to unit powering rooms.
Chhabria owes at least $40,000 in village fines in connection with code violations at the property, according to a February filing by Oak Park attorneys.
Squatters remained in the building until Oak Park police and other village officials removed them from the property in “the first week of February,” Chhabria said. The last legal tenant had been moved out of the building in January, according to the village.
At that point, the building was boarded up, secured and crews had been able to start rehab work on the exterior of the building. Repair crews had been on site the day of the fire, he said.
He blamed the issues at the property on poor management by the people he’d hired but again couldn’t specify a time when that began to turn for the worse.
“It got out of hand,” he said.
Chhabria said that SC Real Estate LLC, the business entity through which he owns 1239 N. Taylor Ave, does not own any other properties in Oak Park, but he declined to say if he’s involved with any other properties in the village outside of that entity. He’s owned the building since 2011.
The suit Oak Park filed against Chhabria last summer was not the first time that village officials had taken him to court over issues at the property. In August 2024, Oak Park sued him with court filings describing years of mounting violations.
A December 2022 village inspection had found dozens of violations, including a lack of any functional fire extinguishers. A year later, Oak Park officials were at the property again following reports that raw sewage was “ejecting” from the building and onto the sidewalk, according to legal records.
Village officials also observed posted notices at that time showing that the building was close to having natural gas service shut off, at which point the village would’ve had the building declared unfit for residence, according to court records. Between 2021 and 2024, water service at the building had been suspended eight times over nonpayment, according to a village filing.
That suit also alleged that Chhabria hadn’t had a valid Oak Park residential rental license since 2019. The case was ultimately dismissed in October 2024, according to county court records.
