DALLAS -- A longtime Dallas bar could soon be elbowed out of business, due to the Texas A&M College of Dentistry’s expansion plans.
Patrons have been coming to the Elbow Room on Gaston Avenue for decades for cold beer and good conversation. The brick building is over 100 years old, and some say it’s been home to a bar since the beginning.
For the last three years, Rosalie Nagy and her husband have owned the bar. They have a 20-year lease and had longterm plans to keep the neighborhood staple a constant.
“Business is great,” Nagy said.
But earlier this year, they learned that the nearby Texas A&M's Baylor College of Dentistry is planning a new, $129-million, nine-story clinical facility, and they hope to build it right where the Elbow Room now stands.
The company that owns the brick building told the school it’s not for sale, but now Texas A&M may use eminent domain to take it. That could mean the end of the Elbow Room.
“If there is a threat of eminent domain -- or even the threat of eminent domain is conveyed -- then my lease terminates,” Nagy said. “I can’t get around that. It’s in my contract.”
She wants to move the bar to a new location, but she says Texas A&M has stopped negotiating with her and won’t take meetings.
“They don’t have to treat me like this. It is legally right. It’s not morally right,” she said. “They could work with me to relocate. They could save the jobs of the 20 employees.”
In a written statement, Texas A&M University stressed that the new facility will provide substantial public good by training new dentists and treating thousands more patients. They said the company that owns the building has rejected multiple offers, and the school is “duty-bound to reluctantly explore eminent domain, a last-resort option.”
“As for the tenants who operate the Elbow Room under a lease, we recognize that this puts them in a difficult position and have offered to pay reasonable relocation expenses should they decide to move their bar," the statement said. "In addition, we have promised to give them adequate notice before any move would be necessary.”
Still, Nagy is frustrated and says that communication has broken down.
The irony is, the Nagys are Aggies. Their son went to school in College Station, and the family had season tickets to football games.
“Now, I don’t know what to think of them, quite honestly,” she said.