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Owner of Struthers business destroyed by fire plans to rebuild
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Struthers firefighters Mike Donofrio, left, Brian Hallquist and Walter Baber, in front of Hallquist, tear down a portion of the building that, before Monday’s destructive fire, housed Struthers Chair and Tent Rental. The cause of the fire has not been determined.
By EMMALEE C. TORISK
STRUTHERS
It had been barely 24 hours since fire destroyed the building that housed Struthers Chair and Tent Rental, but early Tuesday afternoon, owner Joe Lattanzio already was looking ahead.
With the next seven weeks of party rentals booked in advance, he had no other choice.
“I’m going to make sure everybody gets their stuff in the next couple of weeks,” said Lattanzio, adding that several other rental companies have offered to help him honor his outstanding rental commitments for festivals and graduation parties, among other events. “I was booked out.”
All but four of the more than 50 tents owned by Struthers Chair and Tent Rental were lost in Monday’s blaze, which quickly consumed the 625 Spring St. building. The company had been there for only about five months, Lattanzio said, explaining that it moved to the larger building from 111 Elm St. so employees could more easily construct new tents.
Lattanzio added that it’s “hard to put a value” on the loss, and said though he’s waiting to hear back from his insurance company, it’s not likely that everything lost will be covered. Instead, he’s just hoping that it will “help keep [Struthers Chair and Tent Rental] in business.” “I will rebuild,” Lattanzio said of his company, which has been around since the early 1990s, and even earlier in a different form. “I like doing what I’m doing.”
Struthers Fire Chief Gary Mudryk said the building at the top of Spring Street near Youngstown-Poland Road, which Troyer Farms Potato Chips had long occupied, is considered a loss, though the cause of the fire “still remains undetermined.” The city’s fire investigators are handling the case.
Mudryk said, too, that the dollar amount of damage isn’t yet available, as it depends heavily upon the contents lost in the fire. He noted that the worth of the building, owned by the Lyon Creed Corp. of Struthers and built almost 60 years ago, is estimated at about $70,000.
A source from the Creed family said they, too, would rebuild, and that an upcoming vacancy in a neighboring building owned by the Lyon Creed Corp. could mean a temporary location for Struthers Chair and Tent Rental.
No one was in the building when the Struthers Fire Department received the first report of smoke in the area about 10:45 a.m. Monday.
The city’s fire department later was assisted by the Youngstown and Campbell fire departments, along with the Western Reserve Joint Fire District, to fight the blaze.
The crews were on scene for about three hours but got the fire under control in about an hour and a half, sparing nearby structures that were being used for storage, Mudryk said.
“When we arrived on scene, we knew that building was lost,” he added. “We switched our efforts to saving the two buildings attached.”
No injuries were reported, though a power line did go down, shutting off power for part of the street.