Property Owner, Contractor Ticketed After Building Collapse

The landlord of a building in the Oak Park Arts District that collapsed will be fined by the village, officials said.

Chris Kleronomos, who owns the property from 201 – 211 Harrison Street, and contractor Built Max Construction will be cited with "a range of violations, including doing work beyond the scope of a permit and failing to take steps to compensate for the effect of the unpermitted work, which contributed to the parapet wall failure," according to a news release issued Monday.

One person suffered minor injuries after Wednesday's partial building collapse, when a brick facade atop two storefronts, the vacant building on the southwest corner of Harrison Street and Lombard Avenue and above Prodigy Glass Works, crumbled and sent bricks raining down onto the sidewalk and street.

Two parked cars were also damaged.

The village is also slapping on tickets for failing to clean up debris from the collapse in a timely manner.

Officials in Oak Park's building and property standards department say the "most likely" cause of the collapse was "a loss of load-bearing support for the steel beams along the front of the building." That support was lost when workers removed sections of a terra cotta from the brick piers where those beams rested, which caused a a weakening of the piers.

Village officials now say parts of that work were conducted without a permit.