Crusader Staff Report
The washers and dryers are humming again at Laundryworld in Woodlawn. The popular laundromat that was forced to close last year after 50 years, in 2017, is back in business.
Owner Lloyd Hughes and neighborhood residents are celebrating after a bankruptcy judge approved a settlement agreement that reopens an operation that Hughes built from the ground up in 1968.
Laundryworld is located at 6331 S. King Drive.
Last October, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Benjamin Goldgar forced Hughes to sell his business after he paid $354 to repair a machine without informing his creditor, Inland Bank. Hughes’ business fell into bankruptcy when he got behind on a $625,000 loan he obtained to pay for major renovations and 155 new state-of-the art washers and dryers.
With nowhere to turn, Hughes was forced to close and residents of the Parkway Gardens residential complex were without a neighborhood laundromat to clean their laundry. A padlock was placed on the business and for six months the lights stayed on while the business remained shuttered.
But last week, Judge Goldgar approved a settlement agreement between Hughes, the Small Business Administration and Inland Bank, which held the federally guaranteed loan that Hughes fell delinquent on.