David Mileus knew that he did not have a chance when he appeared before the City Planning Commission on Nov. 25.

The hearing was not for anything as prominent as Wal-Mart moving in the warehouse district, but for something much closer to Loyola students’ hearts: a proposal for a new bar on Maple Street.

After city councilman Jay Batt pulled his support for Mileus days before, the results of his hearing had been all but sealed.

“Regardless of what has been said, the proposed business would have improved the area,” said Mileus, who is the owner of Bruno’s Bar on the corner of Maple and Hillary.

“We want to build something different from what is currently in the area.”

Mileus proposed building Bruno’s College Inn cattycorner from the present location of the bar.

The plan calls for a three-story building. The first two floors would have bar with a full time kitchen staff and wraparound porch and balconies. The third floor would be reserved as an apartment for Mileus, who now lives in Metairie.

While college students might call the plan a major improvement over the current one story edifice now housing Bruno’s, Maple Street locals are not impressed.

“I feel very negative about it,” said Cindy Dike, owner of the Maple Street Children’s Book Shop. “I don’t want a 9,000 square foot bar across the street from me. There will be a lot of noise and not enough parking spaces.”

“A bar would be bad for the neighborhood,” said Dike. “A small business would be all right by me. A coffee shop, maybe a little restaurant with a liquor license. I don’t care.”

“The neighborhood just does not want any type of business with alcohol licenses,” countered Mileus, pointing out Councilman Batt’s opposition to any new place that sold alcohol.

Mileus said that the local organizations are wrong about how his bar will affect land values.

While the neighborhood is concerned about a bar lowering land values, real estate experts hired by Mileus claim that the project will improve the value of the land in the area.

The Maple Street Book Shops are members of the Maple Residents Association, which is one of the major detractors to Mileus’s plan.

Along with other local neighborhood associations the MPA organized a “No High Rises Uptown” sign campaign against Tulane development and many of its members also showed up to speak against the plan at the November hearing.

Locals are concerned with the escalating crime, lowering land values and public nuisance issues that a large bar could raise.

Mileus feels that the different neighborhood organizations are misrepresenting the facts to scare people into opposing the project.

According to urbanconservancy.org the current Bruno’s is to stay in operation after the new bar is completed. Mileus’s actual plans are to turn Bruno’s into a pizzeria and bar that would be open during normal business hours.

Although his original plans were rejected by the CPC, Mileus has not lost hope is his new business venture.

He is refining his plans in the hopes that future hearings will approve his project.

“We’re gonna build something there,” said Mileus. “I hope they are going to like it.”