Trial by fire: Local businesses rebuilding after blazes

Sometime this week Ishmael Lunetta needs to finish writing down what he lost — aside from independence and income — in a fire six months ago.

He started the list for an insurance claim soon after an arsonist burned his business, Discount Auto Works in Campbell County, in May. In late October his insurance company told him he had 15 days to submit the list.

“Sometimes I just don’t even feel like dealing with it, just because of the stress and the pain and depression,” Lunetta said. “I’ve just been dragging my feet on it, but it’s something I need to get done.”

“I’ll be glad when it’s all over with and I can pick up my life and hopefully start another business,” said Lunetta, who now works at another auto shop earning less money than he did on his own. “Until I get another business, it won’t be the same. It’s going to be hard on me until then.”

More than 10 businesses in the Lynchburg area have been through a trial by fire in the past two years. The fires had several causes, ranging from arson to discarded cigarettes to lightning.

After the flames died, the business owners were left to sift through the ashes, work on complicated insurance claims and try to move on.

Most of the businesses hit by fires in recent months and years had insurance, or the owners found other ways to pay for new inventory and start over. Others were forced out of business, and others still are in limbo.

“There’s no manual. There’s nobody telling you, here’s what you’re supposed to do now,” said Stephen Horton, owner of Healthy Inspirations fitness center, formerly in the Jefferson Business Center on U.S. 221, which burned to the ground in June.

Horton said he is not reopening because getting an insurance claim would require more time and work and yield less money than he had expected. “There’s so many moving parts, you just don’t know what to do.”

Most of the fires that have burned Lynchburg-area businesses in the past two years started while the business owners were somewhere else and had to learn of the fires by phone call. That was the case for Lunetta’s business in May.

The fire broke out at about 2 a.m. on May 5. Lunetta got a phone call saying the auto shop was burning. “I thought maybe it was a small fire, something out back, that it wasn’t no big deal,” he said. “But I got in my car and went down there and saw the whole thing involved.”

Later that day Charles Chittum, of Rustburg, was arrested and charged with arson. Chittum pleaded guilty in September. After the fire Lunetta found a new job at Golden Rule Auto in Rustburg. He earns less money there than he did at his own business, but he needs the work to keep up with bills, including his house payment, he said. “There’s no way I’m going to lose everything I’ve got because someone else tripped me up and caused me a problem.”

He said he plans to finish filing a claim with his insurer, Prudential.

While Lunetta struggles to finish his insurance claim, Mike “Spyder” Foster wishes he had a claim to work on.

Foster had just moved I.C. Studios, a tattoo parlor, to the Jefferson Business Center in June. He scheduled a grand opening and was working to get the shop insured.

On June 20, while he was teaching someone how to tattoo, a woman rushed into the shop and said that if anyone had a car behind the center, they should move it. The building was on fire.

“We could have gotten some stuff out of there, but it didn’t look that bad,” Foster said. He grabbed a water hose out back and started spraying the fire, to no avail.

Firefighters later determined that discarded smoking materials probably sparked the flames in cardboard boxes and old bike tires behind the strip mall. “Once it got to the rubber tires back there, it just went up really quick,” Foster said.

All of Foster’s business equipment was destroyed. The only items that survived were two guitars, including a vintage Fender Stratocaster that belonged to his father.

With his business gone, Foster could not afford rent, he said. He now lives in the Salvation Army Center for Hope shelter in Lynchburg.

He is looking for a grant that would help him open a new tattoo shop in Charlottesville. Some of his customers are firefighters there and have tried to help him financially since the fire, Foster said.

At first Foster had heard the Jefferson Business Center would be rebuilt, but the owners are selling the land instead.

Real estate agent Gary Case said the owners realized that by the time they could get an insurance settlement and rebuild, most of their tenants would have found new locations. He said a potential buyer has signed a contract on the property. The sale could close Nov. 20.

Other businesses that have burned to the ground are moving forward with fewer hitches.

The Appomattox Auto Works body shop was struck by lightning in July. About two months later it opened again.

Over the summer the body shop’s employees, with help from church congregations and other businesses in the community, renovated the former Appomattox Ford building on U.S. 460. Appomattox Auto Works re-opened in September.

Everett Shober, owner, said his business’ Auto Owners insurance policy provided paychecks to him and his employees while the business was closed. It also paid for the vehicles that were in the shop when it burned down.

“The feedback that we’re hearing from some of those owners (is that) they’re being taken care of,” he said.

The forced move ended up having a positive side to it. The old shop was east of Appomattox, and the new one is west of the town. That has brought new customers. “We’ve been as busy as we ever have been,” Shober said. “It’s amazing how many people … didn’t know we had a business on the other side of town.”

The new shop also has extra workspaces that Shober is renting to a mechanic and a detailer. With those new businesses, plus additional employees Shober has hired, at least seven new jobs were created, he said.

Shober said that without insurance, he probably would have retired early. He wouldn’t have been able to afford to start over on his own.

Harry Leist, owner of Olde Liberty Station in Bedford, echoed that thought.

Without insurance, “we wouldn’t be back,” he said. “I don’t have the kind of money to do all this.”

But because he has insurance on the property, it wouldn’t make sense to not rebuild, he said.

The historic restaurant, housed in a 1905 former railroad depot, erupted in flames in September while a contractor was stripping paint with a blowtorch. Fire consumed part of the roof and most of one dining room area.

Leist has owned the Olde Liberty Station restaurant for eight years, but Norfolk Southern Railroad owned the building. In August, Leist signed a contract to purchase the building. He still plans to buy it when the rebuilding and renovations are completed.

Leist expects the restaurant to reopen as early as February. In the meantime his employees are using another restaurant’s kitchen for catering jobs.

On Sept. 18, while fire raged through the restaurant, all Leist could do was watch, he said.

“It just happened. There’s nothing anybody can do about it. All I can do now is fix it and move forward.”

AREA BUSINESSES HIT BY FIRES
Several area business have gone up in flames over the past several months. Among them:

Agrium fertilizer plant
Mayflower Drive, Lynchburg
Burned Jan. 13, 2008
Company began rebuilding this fall and hopes to open new warehouse in February.

Discount Auto Service
U.S. 29 South in Campbell County
Burned May 5
Owner now works at Golden Rule Auto Service, Rustburg.

Appomattox Auto Works
U.S. 460, Appomattox
Burned June 9
Reopened in former Appomattox Ford building on U.S. 460 in September.

Greer Wholesale warehouse
U.S. 29 South near English Tavern Road
Burned Oct. 9
Warehouse was not insured. The store now uses a warehouse in Madison Heights.

Olde Liberty Station
Bedford Avenue in Bedford
Burned Sept. 18.
Renovation and rebuilding under way; Could open in Feb. 2010.

Jefferson Business Center
18396 Forest Road, Forest
Burned June 20, claiming the following businesses:
- Blackwater Bike Shop — Reopened at 18869 Forest Road in September.
- California Nails — Wards Road location still open. Manager of Forest location opened T&J Nails in October at 1311 Enterprise Drive in Lynchburg.
- I.C. Studios — Owner is looking for a new location.
- Scene 3 Board shop — Reopened at 1415 Kemper St. in August.
- Healthy Inspirations — Not reopening.
- Virginia Farm Bureau Insurance — Reopened a few days later in a house at 18944 Forest Road.