SOUTH LOOP — From the outside of the boarded-up Chicago Firehouse Restaurant, it doesn't look as if much is being done to reopen the business closed in December — ironically — by a fire.
Yet appearances can be deceiving, owner Matthew O'Malley said.
"There is activity, in the sense that we've been working with the architects, we've been working with Landmarks, and we have the process through the insurance claim, so there's plenty of activity, but it's more, I would say, behind the scenes," O'Malley said last week, almost three months after the disaster.
It was irony enough that a fire closed the restaurant at 1401 S. Michigan Ave. It's additionally ironic that the converted building is considered so precious, as an example of Chicago firehouses in the Romanesque Revival style of 100 years ago, that it has to take extra steps in getting approval for the reconstruction as an official landmark designated by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks in 2003.
That, however, is a relatively minor aggravation, O'Malley said. He's dealt with the Landmarks Commission in the past, he said, and "they've been great to work with."
He also dismissed the notion that the trouble some of his other restaurants have gone through has served as a distraction or a drain on financial resources. City Tavern across the street closed last year, and Park Grill, 11 N. Michigan Ave., remains embroiled in a suit with the city over what some have called "a sweetheart deal" in the original lease agreement.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration has filed suit seeking to end the deal, arguing that it sprang from the cozy relationship between O'Malley and his future wife, Laura, when she was working for the Chicago Park District, which first sealed the deal for the Millennium Park restaurant.
Mayor Richard M. Daley has been a well-known supporter of O'Malley's, to the point where he took President George W. Bush to Chicago Firehouse when the president was in town for his birthday in 2006. The suit alleged that Daley backers invested in Park Grill.
Yet, in a deposition on the suit, Daley answered, "I don't know" 139 times, and he has successfully resisted testifying in court on the matter on medical grounds since suffering a stroke a year ago.
According to city Law Department spokesman John Holden, testimony in the case wrapped up last month, with final argument briefs due May 1, followed by oral arguments and a court decision at some point after that.
Yet all that's negligible compared with the logistical nightmare of making the actual repairs, O'Malley said. Roofers were blamed for causing the blaze, which led the roof to collapse onto the second floor.
The placeholder message on the restaurant's website says it "will always serve as a historic landmark and cornerstone of the South Loop community." Yet it's short on specifics on what's actually being done.
O'Malley said there's "nothing definitive" on a timeline for when reconstruction might start, but added, "Every effort's being made right now to rebuild."
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