Landmark restaurant faces wrecking ball

CEDAR RAPIDS - City Council member Chuck Swore is holding out hope that the Ellis A&W can be resurrected, but the landmark drive-in restaurant is one of dozens of commercial buildings in Cedar Rapids slated for demolition as early as this fall.

“It's not a done deal until it's torn down,” Swore said Friday. “I think there's still hope and I think there's folks who are interested. It certainly is an icon of the west side.”

The restaurant, 1136 Ellis Blvd. NW, didn't reopen after being flooded with the rest of the Time Check neighborhood in June 2008.

Owner Doug Ward, 67, had hoped to rebuild or open elsewhere in Cedar Rapids, but he finally sold the site as part of the city's buyout of flooded commercial properties.

The City Council last month approved the demolition of 51 buildings, including the A&W.

“Our world rotated around A&W for 30 years,” Ward said of his wife, Lois, and their children who worked in the restaurant. “It was 30 years of our lives.”

The restaurant was a part of the neighborhood for even longer, with city directories showing a Boulevard Drive-In at that location starting in 1954. Wally's A&W Drive-In opened at the site around 1962, and the Wards began operating the A&W in 1978.

Doug Ward said the decision came down to financing: The bustling restaurant would need four to six times the volume of business it previously had seen to pay off rebuilding.

“It's just not advisable to reopen there,” he said.

Joe O'Hern, the city's flood recovery and reinvestment director, said the building sits in the 100-year flood plain.

The council just adopted guidelines that call for evaluating redevelopment proposals only for buildings outside the flood plain that have not been significantly damaged.

O'Hern said saving the building appears unlikely, unless someone can sway the council with a well-funded, viable business plan.

Matt Widner, the city's code enforcement manager, said the commercial buildings are already being tested for environmental hazards.

Contracts could be awarded by September - likely with 10 to 15 properties per bid - with demolition beginning soon after that.

Widner predicted it would take until spring to complete the demolitions, due to the complexity and size of some of the buildings.

The Wards, who also lost their Eighth Street NW home in the flood, have moved to a mobile home in southwest Cedar Rapids.

Doug Ward said he plans to watch the demolition, an event that will likely draw a crowd.

“As a kid, I remember Tuesday Coney dogs,” said Glenda Fillenworth, 57, who grew up nearby and now owns Canine Corner and Cats Too, 1201 Eighth St. NW, a pet boarding business just a stone's throw from the A&W.

Fillenworth, who was able to reopen her business five months after the flood, said the Wards provided jobs for many youths in the neighborhood over the years.

“It's sad what happened,” she said. “Everyone definitely will miss it in the neighborhood.”