LOGAN SQUARE — Plans for the redevelopment of the Congress Theater are moving ahead, but not before one major hurdle: the relocation of tenants still living in the building.
A meeting with city officials was held Tuesday in the theater’s lobby to discuss options for the 19 people still living in apartment units in the Congress Theater at 2135 N. Milwaukee Ave. The residential units are accessed through a side door off Rockwell Street and Milwaukee Avenue.
Five tenants attended the meeting after all 19 were issued eviction notices for April 1, when a judge-ordered vacate ruling will take effect and move the Congress closer to a final sale to theater developer Michael Moyer.
“There’s all this hoopla over the new Congress and no one has mentioned what’s going to happen with the tenants,” tenant Lair Scott said in January, ahead of the official eviction notices. “We’re on a roller coaster here. … I have no heat and no gas.”
While several tenants were cut checks refunding their security deposits on the spot, at least one declined the offer for the refund and free relocation services, along with a list of affordable housing options in and around Logan Square.
Congress Theater tenant Lair Scott. Photo: Darryl Holliday
“I’m just really upset, I don’t know where I’m going to go — I’m facing homelessness,” Scott said.
Scott, who had been “chronically homeless” for 10 years in the past, repeated his concerns to Judy Frydland, deputy corporation counsel for the city of Chicago, and a group of real estate and legal representatives involved with the Congress Theater transition, including Eddie Carranza, the building’s soon-to-be former owner, and his lawyer Demetris Kare.
While three other tenants of the building accepted offers that included security deposit refunds averaging around $700 and relocation services for their upcoming move, Scott declined an offer of $2,000 to help with him move out by April 1.
“I think it’s worth more than that,” he said Tuesday after the meeting. “It’s not just an issue of money, it’s how we’ve been treated.”
That last issue came to a head March 16 when Scott was “verbally assaulted” by a man around 4:55 p.m., according to a report filed with police. According to Scott, a building manager for the Congress Theater yelled a slur at him during an argument regarding the tenant dispute.
A peek inside the Congress Theater.
Kare sympathized with Scott at Tuesday's meeting, but reiterated that the vacate order was judge-ordered and currently out of his control.
“We’ll get you moved, you don’t have to worry about that,” Kare told the tenants. “This is a situation none of us want to be in as we had grand visions for this place at one point in time.”
According to Carranza, a final sale of the Congress Theater is expected by mid-April at which time reconstruction of the 89-year-old structure will begin in full — a process that will eventually culminate in the "New Congress Theater."
A second meeting for Congress Theater tenants will take place March 25 for residents who weren’t available to strike a deal for relocation Tuesday but still require city assistance for their upcoming move.
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