Condemnation lifted: Lord Stanley's reopens

Editor's note: This story has been revised to reflect World Famous Pizza reopened, along with Lord Stanley's, on Tuesday.

DeKALB – The stark red signs have been removed from the entrance to Lord Stanley’s Bar, which reopened Tuesday afternoon.

The owner of the business and the building at 142 E. Lincoln Highway, Mark Thompson, said Thaddeus Mack, the chief building official for the city of DeKalb, did a walkthrough Tuesday morning.

“He just looked at it and said, ‘OK,’ and he took all the little red signs down,” Thompson said.

World Famous Pizza also reopened for business.

Thompson received a report Monday detailing problems that led to the building being condemned Friday. The biggest problem was mold found in the basement where food and beverages were stored. That problem was cleared up Monday, and pavers installed where the wood floor had deteriorated giving way to dirt below, Thompson said.

The building to the east, 150-156 E. Lincoln Highway, which houses Lord Stanley’s Annex and the Common Grounds coffee shop, remains condemned while engineers work out how to fortify joists in load-bearing areas. That building is owned by Billy Valos of Roselle, who said it could take weeks to fix the problem. Valos rents the space to Thompson and Common Grounds owner Jeff Foster.

Valos said Tuesday afternoon that he’s not sure whether he’ll make the fixes, which he said could cost up to $100,000, according to an engineer who worked up an initial drawing. Valos plans to run it by another colleague in construction, then speak with city officials to find out whether any help, including tax increment financing assistance, could help his cause. He said he’ll run the drawings by Mack on Thursday.

In the meantime, Valos said Foster is exploring whether he can move out, shortly after Foster signed a new lease for the space.

“He wants to know if he can simply rip it up,” Valos said.

Although the structural problems are at the south end of the building – not under Common Grounds – the coffee shop can’t reopen until they’re fixed, Valos said.

Red signs also have been removed from all the entrances to apartments above all the businesses. Residents were told they’d find out Monday morning whether they’d have to move out, City Attorney Dean Frieders has said, and Mack said Monday morning that such problems as missing smoke alarms, the lack of a fire extinguisher and propane tanks being stored in a hallway were resolved.

While the reopenings of the annex, coffee shop and pizza business are up in the air, Lord Stanley’s reopened at 3 p.m. Tuesday.

“This is huge,” Thompson said. “It’s real huge.”

He said he’ll double-staff the bar space to help out employees who lost wages over the weekend while the bar was closed.

Thompson said over the weekend, he lost about $9,000 in revenue.

“You’re living off of weekends,” he said. “As for today, I don’t know what to call it – a grand opening, or what?”