Rincon Market clears the smoke, gets ready to re-open

After a fire forced it to close more than nine months ago, Rincon Market hopes to reopen its doors at the end of April following a $750,000 restoration project.

Employees of the popular midtown store and cafe, at North Tucson Boulevard and East Sixth Street, were serving lunchtime customers on July 2, 2013 as they did every day. The summer sky was visible through the windows, until ominous smoke began to fill the air in the market.

“It was wall to wall gray and black smoke,” remembers Ron Abbott, the store’s owner. Flames were not visible, but he knew he had to get everybody out. “First thing was to make sure everybody was safe.”

The fire was restricted to the ceiling above the deli. But the smoke and water damage were too extensive for the neighborhood market to stay open. City officials put up a sign outside the window declaring it “unsafe to occupy.”

“We’re down for now, but we’re not out,” read another sign, posted by Rincon Market as a pledge to its loyal customers.

Originally, Abbott hoped to have his store up and running again within six months.

But the flooring had to come out to upgrade the plumbing. The dropped ceilings were taken out. Gas line repairs and electrical work had to be done.

“Pretty much three quarters of the market had to be redone,” Abbott said.

Daunting procEss

Restoring a business after a fire is a daunting process, involving lots of time and manpower.

After just about every step, the restoration company had to speak with the insurance companies or wait for city inspections to move to the next step.

Abracadabra Restoration was called to the scene the day after the fire.

After getting the green light from the insurance companies, the first step was to board up the venting holes in the roof that Tucson firefighters created, as well as the hole caused by the fire.

After that, crews put “special screw jacks up to make sure there was no danger of the rafters or ceiling falling in,” said Breck Grumbles, president of Abracadabra Restoration.

Once the building was safe, crews were able to remove goods that were sitting in water and pack out the salvageable contents to the restoration company’s warehouse.

All the while, they were photographing and documenting the inventory and preserving evidence so the cause of the fire could be determined.

Crews also had to dispose of spoiled and perishable food, which had to be documented and weighed so the insurance company knew how much was lost.

“Before we could touch the structure Rincon Market’s insurance company’s forensic engineers had to look for cause and origin of the fire. That took some time,” Grumbles said. The cause was found to be an electrical malfunction in attic wiring, the Tucson Fire Department has said.

To prevent mold, water had to be extracted from the market and the building had to be dried. “There was a ton of water from the fire department,” Grumbles said.

Truck-mounted extractors and air movers, or big fans, pulled the moisture out of the framing, floor and ceiling and into the airspace and dehumidifiers. The process is known as psychrometry or “the science of drying,” Grumbles said.

“There was considerable structural damage to the roof, soot residue from smoke, and odor permeated all walls, ceilings and adjacent businesses,” he said.

The overall cost of the project included soot and odor removal in the adjacent businesses and new ceiling tiles at neighboring Bob Dobbs Bar & Grill, Grumbles said.

The building, built in 1926, had issues that needed to be addressed to pass inspections. There was evidence of improperly installed, nonpermitted plumbing, electrical and mechanical systems that appeared to have been done over the course of decades, said LeeRay Hanly, senior building inspector for the city of Tucson.

“When you start working in old buildings, you are more likely to run into problems than if you build new,” Hanly said. “But, usually, this is because over the years there have been modifications done without the benefit of obtaining required permits.”

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However, Hanly said those issues were “readily dealt with and should not have caused any major delays.”

INSURANCE

Despite all of the work that had to be done, Abbott said he knew everything would fall into place.

“There’s always a little turmoil,” he said. “You wonder where it’s heading. My wife was a little more worried than me, but I’m more laid back.”

Part of that confidence, he said, came from knowing everything was being taken care of financially through the market’s insurance policy with Tucson-based Crest Insurance Group. “We knew we had good coverage,” Abbott said. “Crest has been phenomenal.”

Rincon’s property insurance includes business interruption coverage, for actual loss sustained, which covers a business for its lost income.

“It’s one of the best possible insurances for a business,” said Brett Rustand, vice president of Crest Insurance Group. “There’s no cap or limit because it’s whatever loss you’ve sustained based off of last year’s revenue.”

For example, if a business made $2 million in revenue in the same time period last year, that’s what would be covered by the insurance.

Another part of Rincon Market’s insurance policy — ordinary payroll — provides paychecks to employees for up to a year during the rebuild. “We wanted to make sure we’d get to keep our key people if anything happened,” Abbott said.

Many business owners don’t have this type of coverage, Rustand said. But it’s something to consider when shopping for insurance to avoid a financial deficit, he said.

“A good portion of businesses are unable to recover from loss because they are fighting to make up the deficit from when they were out of business,” he said.

The Abbotts retained approximately 40 of their 60 employees, who have continued to get paid through the insurance.

Staff members have kept busy working at the Abbotts’ wedding venue, Stardance at 8110 N. Scenic Drive, and their new venture, Park Avenue, an urban wedding venue set to open in May in the Lost Barrio, 228 S. Park Ave.

Ron Abbott said it’s a possibility Rincon Market wouldn’t have recovered if not for the insurance.

PROGRESS

Progress has been slow, but steady. Each time Rincon’s owners thought the store would open soon, more repairs have had to be made. A recent Facebook post put it this way: “It’s one step up and three back right now.”

Last week the tentative opening was pushed back, again, due to more needed repairs.

“Just as we thought we were finishing electrical, they found more areas that need code upgrades,” said John Abbott, general manager of the store.

Since the market received a repair permit from Tucson’s Planning & Development Services Department in August, there have been five minor revisions to the first set of plans, Hanly said. “Revisions were for either necessary repairs to damaged systems, like the gas piping, to correct previous illegally installed work — mostly plumbing — and for some owner changes.”

City inspectors have been on site a total of 14 times since November. Ten of those visits were actual inspections, and four were consultations. Hanly said the number of inspections Rincon Market has had is about average for this kind of rebuilding.

Construction is expected to be done in the next couple of weeks. The market can then stock its shelves. Equally important, the salad bar will be shipped to the store in the beginning of April. “We can’t open the store without the salad bar,” Ron Abbott said.

Rincon Market will plan a grand reopening celebration, where it will unveil its slightly different look and revamped menu.

“We’re looking forward to it,” Ron Abbott said. “People will walk in and say, ‘this is cool.’”