Who'll get last Lafayette?

Lawyers and the help of City Council look to keep open Lafayette Park Shopping Center, at least for a while. The strip mall owners — The Habitat Company of Chicago — ordered shops to evacuate by Aug. 15. But thanks to a temporary historic-site designation by council, the impending move is delayed. “We’re not going anywhere that fast,” says Richard Schiff of Richard’s Drugs. Schiff says shop owners are working together and separately to hire lawyers and fight the shut down. Meanwhile, the merchants are stewing that Habitat boasts it is one of the largest residential property managers in the Midwest, with more than 23,000 units, and yet hasn’t been able to keep up the center, turn on air conditioning that’s been on the blink since early July or come up with any better plan than demolishing the well-used site in favor of supposedly more profitable, yet unannounced, plans.

Lisa M. Collins is a Metro Times staff writer. E-mail [email protected]