City threatens to close Greenwood Lounge, Hagar's

Hagar's Manhattan Deli and the Greenwood Lounge, two long-time Ingersoll Avenue businesses, will have to close at the end of June if their landlord does not bring the properties up to code, according to a court order obtained by the city of Des Moines.

The businesses are part of several properties owned by Lee Family Properties LLC, near Ingersoll and 37th Street. The properties also include the closed Ingersoll Theatre, an empty bar and a long-closed gas station.

The city’s threat to close Hagar's and the Greenwood is the culmination of several years of tense negotiations. City officials said they have tried with no success to get owner Andy Lee to fix parking and sidewalk violations at the site.

“He is the worst property owner I have encountered in my entire political career,” City Council member Christine Hensley, whose ward includes Ingersoll Avenue, said. “We can’t get him to do anything, so this is our last resort.”

Lee did not return a voicemail Friday requesting comment.

Despite the deadline, Fred Hagar, whose family owns the deli, said he isn’t worried. He is confident that the city will find a compromise before forcing his business to close July 1.

“The city isn’t going to shut us down,” he said. “They don’t want to do that. They just want to scare (Lee).”

Indeed, Hensley said she wants to find a way for the businesses to remain open. But she said the city has “exhausted everything” in its attempt to get Lee to comply.

Hensley said she would prefer to see Lee sell the property to someone who will fix and maintain them. Hensley and other city officials said they can’t figure out why Lee won’t sell, especially considering the strong demand for commercial properties along Ingersoll.

Real estate developer Richard Hurd has talked to Lee about buying the properties but said he has "not received a positive response."

"It's a process with Andy," said Hurd, who previously bought two other Ingersoll properties from Lee. "There is nothing quick about it."

The two businesses are staples on Ingersoll Avenue. The Greenwood opened in 1933 and is one of several bars claiming to be the oldest in the city. It's also valued by musicians as one of the only venues in the city offering live music nightly.

Hagar’s Manhattan Deli opened 34 years ago and has built a following of loyal lunch customers. The deli opened a second location earlier this year in West Des Moines.

The Ingersoll Theatre, meanwhile, has been empty for several years. After a long run as a dinner theater, the venue was home to several short-lived businesses.

Preservation advocates have named it one of the city’s “most endangered” buildings because of the lack of maintenance.

Rick Condon, a Hagar’s regular, asked why the deli and the lounge have to be punished for the shortfalls of the landlord.

MORE: $35 million apartment, retail project planned on Ingersoll

“You’re talking about two of the places in this town where the customers are most loyal,” he said between bites of a Vito sandwich. "It would be very sad to lose the tradition of this place."

SuAnn Donovan, neighborhood inspections administrator for the city, said Des Moines has no other mechanism to force Lee to update the properties.

Taking possession of the property is out of the question. The city can only do that in special cases when the owner refuses to pay property taxes or in cases of eminent domain in which the property will be used for public infrastructure. Neither scenarios apply to Lee’s property.

The idea, Donovan said, is that if Lee can’t bring his properties up to code, then he should not be allowed to make money by renting them to businesses.

“This is a last resort,” she said. “The city has absolutely no interest in shutting down the Greenwood or Manhattan Deli, but as a last resort, if he won’t bring the property up to our landscaping and parking ordinances, then he doesn’t have the right to use the property for those businesses.”

To bring the property up to code, Lee needs to stripe the parking lot behind the building, add buffer strips with plants between the parking lot and adjacent house (which Lee Family Properties also owns) and build an enclosure for trash bins.

In front, he needs to install a new sidewalk, convert angle parking to straight parking and add streetscape features like the planter beds and railings found elsewhere on Ingersoll.

A construction crew was working on the parking lot Friday afternoon.

The fight has been brewing for years. The city filed a petition in 2013 asking a court for force Lee to fix the property.

“He has fought us every step of the way,” Hensley said.

Donovan said she thinks it’s possible for Lee to complete the work this month. But he has pledged to do so several times without following through.

“We’ve been going at this for three or four years with no resolution,” she said.