Rug Merchant's Bid For Knollwood Fire Station Risks Getting Stale

LAKE BLUFF, IL — Months after a lame-duck board approved a cash offer to purchase the former home of the disbanded Knollwood Fire Department, the Rockland Fire Protection District board set a deadline for the bidder to agree a sales contract or risk seeing his bid tossed out.

Haig Klujian has until the board's Nov. 11 meeting to have his attorney finalize the terms of a sales contract with the district for the former fire station, trustees said at recent board meetings.

The Rockland Fire Protection District covers about 1,700 residents in a pair of non-contiguous areas north of Route 176 and west of Route 41 in Lake Bluff and unincorporated Lake County. It oversaw the Knollwood Fire Department for more than 70 years until it was disbanded last year.

The building at 14 Skokie Highway was first put up for lease, without any takers, trustees have said. The district then solicited bids from interested buyers.

The board received three sealed bids and voted 2-1 to approve an all-cash offer of $980,000 from Klujian at a special meeting May 2 — a month after voters elected its trustees for the first time. The previous board had been appointed by Lake County Board President Aaron Lawler before he resigned from office amid an investigation into misappropriation of county funds.

But according to the board's attorney and current president, Klujian has shown little interest in having his attorney finalize the deal, which includes provisions requiring the district keep an office there and be able to use its meeting room and emergency siren.

"If you want this to happen, you've got to have your attorney contact me so we can reduce the resolution to the standard sales contract because, I said, there's some things we've got to do," said board attorney Brian O'Connor, recounting a conversation with Klujian at the board's Aug. 12 meeting. It appeared Klujian was uninterested in accruing legal fees to finalize a contract on the property, O'Connor added.

Klujian, of Highland Park, owns and operates Generations Rug Gallery in Chicago's River North neighborhood. He has not responded to a request for comment about the property.

"I pretty much informed him that he's got the winning bid," Board President Marcin Malinowski said last month. "He's got to either continue the process or pull the bid."

Malinowski said he spoke to Klujian again to let him know that the board would move toward rejecting his bid and potentially restarting the bidding process if there's no contract by November — six months after the bid was accepted.

"No real response," Malinowski said, at the board's Sept. 11 meeting. "[Klujian] said he understood and that was pretty much it."

In a divided vote, the three-member board last September approved an inter-governmental agreement with Lake Forest, Libertyville and the Libertyville Fire Protection District, which covers unincorporated areas, to outsource fire and emergency medical services to its larger neighbors.

Previously, the district spent $640,000 a year, according to the board's former president, Dan Rogers, who faced a series of ethics complaints in connection with the dissolution of the department, Pioneer Press reported. The ethics committee of the former Lake County Board decided against moving forward with the complaints.

Under the terms of agreement to outsource its services, it will pay the village and city $450,000 through next May and $490,000 through May 2021. That amount will increase at a rate tied to inflation and the average fire department budget increases through the deal's expiration in 2038.

At his final meeting as board president, Rogers said he faced a "mob mentality" from people who never wanted to discuss the benefits of consolidation.

"Should the sale go through to Mr. [Klujian]," Rogers said. "You pay off the mortgage and you end up with slightly over $1 million cold hard cash in the bank and another tax levy of another $600,000-plus coming in, I feel like the incoming board is in very good financial conditions."

According to the Lake Forester, the district continues to make a $7,500-a-month mortgage payment on the mostly unused structure.

The future of the building itself is also uncertain. Funding for a long-planned upgrade to the interchange at Route 41 and Route 176 is included in the Rebuild Illinois capital bill signed by Gov. JB Pritzker in June.

According to state Sen. Julie Morrison, a Deerfield Democrat, the bill includes $61 million to upgrade the intersection.

"For years, commuters on this highly traveled stretch of roadway have faced delays and safety hazards," Morrison said in July.

"The design of this interchange is the same today as it was pictured in the very first aerial photo of this area in 1939," Kathy O'Hara, village president of Lake Bluff, said in the statement. "We love our history in Lake Bluff, but it is long past time to bring this important asset into the twenty-first century."

The Illinois Department of Transportation has yet to finalize a plan for the intersection or a timeline for the multiyear capital construction plan, Pioneer Press reported. That means it's not clear if the former fire station will need to be demolished.

Related:

• Lake Bluff Proposes Joint Fire Department With Knollwood
• Knollwood Fire Department Consolidation Vote Approaches
• Lake Bluff Rejects Lake Forest Offer To Take Over Fire Department
• Opinion: Abuse of Political Power and Unfettered Greed Determined Fate of Rockland Fire Protection District