Andrew Meieran still can picture the bar he wanted to open at the SB Manhattan condominium project, before the space was destroyed by a construction crew working for his estranged partner, Barry Shy.

The Mercury Liquors nightspot was to be in the basement of the former Los Angeles Trust and Savings Bank building that opened in 1910 at Sixth and Spring streets in downtown Los Angeles.

“It’s this beautiful, elegant, lost world. And now it’s a ghost of a lost era,” said Meieran, 43, manager of Albion Pacific Property Resources LLC, a downtown real estate management company.

It was a messy finale to a troubled partnership that began in 1998. The end result: Shy has been ordered to pay Meieran about $28 million in damages and fees stemming from two legal matters, including one case over the destruction of the bar space.

“I think there is a certain part of me that is happy that he can be taken to task finally for something,” Meieran said. “He’s gotten off with everything.”

Shy’s take? It’s his worst experience yet with the legal system, which he said “raped” him to the benefit of his former partner.

“He’s no different than a bank robber who comes with a machine gun and steals $20 million from someone,” Shy said.

A UC Berkeley graduate, Meieran got started by restoring Victorian-era homes in the Bay Area. He met Shy on a visit to downtown, when he was taken by the beaux-arts architecture of the Higgins Building, a few blocks from the fateful Los Angeles Trust building. Meieran wanted to buy it, but an all-cash purchase was required, so an escrow agent introduced him to Shy, who had the cash to cover the $1.06 million price.

“What struck me in particular was that he was very shrewd,” said Meieran, who owns the Edison, a popular bar in the Higgins Building’s basement.

The duo partnered to purchase the Higgins Building in what Meieran termed a “shotgun marriage,” and they subsequently completed a handful of other deals. Problems started in May 2005 when Meieran sold Shy the Los Angeles Trust building at 215 W. Sixth St., which the developer would convert into SB Manhattan. As part of the $13.5 million transaction, Meieran retained ground-floor space and the basement for Mercury Liquors.

But by early 2005, Meieran had developed serious reservations about working with Shy, believing that he cut corners in construction and built low-quality projects.

It all came to a head, according to Meieran, over ongoing litigation at the Higgins Building, which Shy had converted to condominiums in 2004. The case stemmed from a disagreement with tenant John Agnew over his ability to buy a unit at a certain price. (See main story.) Meieran alleges he was asked by Shy to lie in an affidavit, but he declined.

“He said, ‘Reconsider, because I can make your life hell.’ And he said, basically, ‘I am going to destroy your bar. You’ll never open your bar,’” Meieran recalled.

Shy vehemently disputed Meieran’s recollection, noting that it was in his interest to have Meieran open Mercury Liquors.

Soon after, a construction crew handling the residential conversion of the property severely damaged the basement, Meieran said. He filed a demand for arbitration over the matter in 2006 with a private arbitrator.

Among an arbitrator’s findings: “destruction of stairs and elevators which accessed the bar space; electrical wiring ripped out; sprinkler lines cut; toilets broken; and doorway covered with drywall.”

The basement’s eye-catching steel bank vaults were going to be centerpieces, but the arbitrator found that water intrusion caused by Shy’s crews led to rust on the vault doors.

“He pretty much destroyed them,” Meieran said.

Shy said the doors sustained only light damage, such as water stains.

After a legal battle that ended in March, Meieran was awarded about $13.4 million in damages and lost profits when it was determined that the basement was too damaged to be used as a bar. Attorney’s fees and interest swelled the total to more than $18 million.

Shy charged that Meieran only sued him after he refused to build part of Mercury Liquors for Meieran. He also questioned the motives of an arbitrator and disagreed with interpretations of contractual issues at the heart of the case.

Meieran has won another big payout in an unrelated case. It stemmed from the sale to Shy of his interest in the residential section of the Higgins Building. Meieran claimed he wasn’t fully paid, and after a lengthy case an entity managed by Shy that developed the building was ordered to pay about $9.3 million.

Despite the awards, Meieran said he is still unhappy.

“It took four years of my life off, plus stress and the craziness,” he said.