The severely damaged apartment building on the corner of Taylor and North Avenues is finally getting demolished after a months-long legal process.
A fire burned through the property at 1239 N. Taylor Ave., on Feb. 17 this year for over 10 hours and required 4 million gallons of water to put out, according to a court filing by village attorneys and previously reported by Wednesday Journal.
Demolition began last Friday, Sept. 4, starting with the southern portion of the building and is being completed by property owner Sameer Chhabria according to village government. Chhabria received a village demolition permit on Aug. 25, 2026, after paying $13,300 in permitting fees and also has obtained the necessary Cook County permit.
Demolition is expected to go on for about a week and a half, per the contractor, wrote a government spokesperson in an email to Wednesday Journal. Once the structure is demolished, the permit outlines that debris is not allowed on site for more than seven days and the site is to be leveled and turned to grass within 60 days. After being leveled and seeded, the security fence should be taken down.
The Village of Oak Park filed an emergency motion on Feb. 20 to get permission to knock the building down. They filed again for the same thing multiple times with the fifth, and last, verified emergency motion in late May.
“It is in the best interest of the public health, safety and welfare for this court to issue injunctive relief in favor of the village and against defendants, including but not limited to requiring Sameer Chhabria and U.S. Bank, joint and several, to demolish the building or in alternative authorize the village to demolish the structure and assess and lien costs to the subject property,” wrote village attorneys in a court filing in April.
The legal battle to get the building demolished was not the first between the village and Chhabria as they had been locked in court for a large portion of the past two years, as previously reported. Village inspections revealed many health and safety violations such as open electric boxes and raw sewage leakage.
According to the motion in May, the village was notified that squatters had taken shelter in the building, and Chhabria told Wednesday Journal in February, that the presence of squatters is what led to the deterioration of the building. He shared that some contractors refused to work on the building prior to the fire because of their presence as well.