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Brown Line vex

CTA upgrades force business to relocate

By Nicole Cohen
Medill News Service

Brian Elmiger, owner of the restaurant and concert venue

Bottom Lounge, found out more than seven years ago that the
CTA planned to take his property. So he relocated from next to
an el stop in Lake View to the West Loop. Today, Elmiger says
he would never have made the move if he'd known how much it
would cost him.

"It is an absolute miracle that we opened again," Elmiger said. "I

mean, a miracle."

But Bottom Lounge isn't out of the woods quite yet. The path to
News reopening involved hiring attorneys, paying for construction and,

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subsequently, a whole lot of debt. Three years after closing down and almost a year after reopening, Elmiger is fighting to get
Cityside
Ann Gerber the CTA to foot a bill that amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Viewpoints
Our views So far, the CTA has forced 30 businesses to relocate to expand the Brown Line. And the temporary closing of el stops for
Letters project construction has affected them even more. At first glance, eminent domain seems like a simple law.

"This is the way public bodies get land," said Bill Ryan, a partner at Ryan and Ryan, a law firm that specializes in eminent
domain cases.

Ryan said there are two big questions that come up in every eminent domain claim he works on.

"One, do they (the public body) have the right to take the property and, two, how much money do they have to pay?"

The Fifth Amendment says government can't take private property without paying for it, which is where the law leaves room for
interpretation. The phrase is "just compensation," and the debate centers around what's just.

"On value, it's a wide-open issue," Ryan said. "It's a regular lawsuit: we have depositions, discovery and negotiations, and if
we can't resolve it, then we have trials."

But "just compensation" can also reach beyond property value.

Because the Brown Line Expansion Project used federal funding, the CTA also had to comply with the Uniform Relocation Act
which, according to Ryan, means that the CTA was also responsible for relocation expenses; yet another law that leaves room
for interpretation.

The $530 million project broke ground in 2004 with the goal of providing longer platforms to accommodate longer trains,
making Brown line stations accessible to disabled people, and modernizing stations. The CTA says they expect to complete
construction by the end of 2009.
About Us The value of the old property is where Elmiger's battle began.
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"When they tried to acquire the property, they tried to tell us our property was not worth that much because it's too close to the
Feedback el," Elmiger said. "[The initial offer] was ridiculous."

After intense negotiations, Elmiger said he ended up getting twice the CTA's original offer or approximately $1.75 million.
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"So you tell me how fair that initial offer is," Elmiger said.

And then there's the question of where the lounge moved. According to Elmiger, a new challenge has been "getting people to
come to the middle of nowhere."
Multimedia "We're not far from an el stop," Elmiger said, "but no one passes it when they're walking home."
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After the initial offer, the CTA was required to give Elmiger 90 days notice to shut down and Elmiger spent the better part of

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Search two years waiting for that notice, never knowing when he would be 90 days away from closing up shop.
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"It was just a terrible dark cloud," Elmiger said. "We succeeded, but if we didn't stay open, basically I would have lost my
business. I would have gotten nothing for, at the time, 14 years of hard work."

Elmiger likened the task of finding the new location at 1375 W. Lake St. to finding a needle in a haystack. And he sums up the
expensive process of reapplying for all the licenses needed to run the original Bottom Lounge this way: "It was painful."

"It's from pure determination and stubbornness that we saw this thing all the way through," Elmiger said.

Best-case scenario

The owners of Belmont Army, now at 855 W. Belmont Ave., had much better luck.

For one thing, the clothing store didn't require nearly as many licenses as Elmiger's restaurant and music venue and the CTA
Board has approved Belmont Army's last relocation-related reimbursement.

For another thing, they already owned the building they would soon relocate to - just down the street from their original
location by the el.

Still, after 25 years at their old location, Vice President Craig Scholla said they pretty much had to start from scratch.

"It was definitely difficult," Scholla said. "There was nothing easy about it."

And while the CTA did pay for the storage of the shop's vintage collection for the two years before the store reopened, Scholla
said the store's new clothing stock didn't keep so well.

"Most of our store is fashion," Scholla said, "fashion you pretty much have to dump and get rid of."

Scholla said the move resulted in a loss of business. And renovating the four-story metal façade building where the store
moved far surpassed $10,000 in renovation claims the CTA is obligated to cover.

"It was quite a few hundred thousand dollars short," Scholla says.

And then there was the challenge of getting old customers back in the new store.

"When the store reopened, people got confused," said Kimberly Baugh, who has been working at the store's Belmont location
for a year.

Baugh said customers who knew their old store would sometimes walk in the new store and then walk right out because they
didn't recognize it.

"This is all new clothing and the Army Surplus is on the third floor," Baugh said. "So we have to kindly direct them."

Less than a year after reopening the Bottom Lounge, Elmiger remains cautious about the future of his business.

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"The new location is great," Elmiger said, "but I spent 2.5 years and a truckload of debt to get back to where I was 15 years
ago as far as developing a business that is profitable."

Elmiger says that with the current economic climate, "it's kind of hard to gauge your success or what you think your success
should be."

But he also says that he doesn't view his situation as particularly unique, especially when it comes to issues of eminent
domain. And the move has put things in perspective for Elmiger.

"You think back to the old place," Elmiger says. "We were going to spend a hundred grand to renovate the place to make it a
little bit nicer, a bit more modern - compared to the millions of dollars you spend on the new location. It just makes you think
how much we've lost by losing the other location."

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