No fire cause yet, but owners talk of rebuilding

CEDAR RAPIDS - Cedar Rapids fire investigators haven't come up with a cause yet for a fire that destroyed a mixed-use building under construction. But the developers are already talking about rebuilding.

The fire at what would have been “The Villages” development at 6

^th

Street and 12

^th

Avenue started very early Saturday morning. The still-under-construction project was expected to open sometime this winter. It would have offered a restaurant and convenience store on the ground floor and 22 apartments above.

Mike Sandersfeld, one of the owners of Sky's Edge Development, said he and his partners probably had at least a million dollars invested in the project to date.  They carried “builder's risk” insurance for the construction. The amount of recovery will impact a successful restart. And Sandersfeld said he now has a new construction timeline, depending on what insurance adjusters and fire investigators do.

“If it's going to be a month from now before we can get through this process, get the building demolished and start again it's going to be a spring opening. But our full intent is to do that,” Sandersfeld said.

Sandersfeld also said he's concerned if prospective retail tenants will wait longer to open a business. The developers had been in discussion with some retail prospects although they had not attempted to lease any of the 22 upper floor apartments yet.

Although the project was technically just outside the border of the New Bohemia cultural district, those living or working nearby certainly considered it a part of the on-going transformation in that near-downtown area.

John Schwartzkopf, who works in the district, said, “I think everybody's just real sad about it and we're all just anxiously hoping they'll rebuild it. I'd hate to see it gone because I don't know what they'd put there instead.”

Fire investigators are not sure how long it will take to come up with a cause of the fire - or if that's even possible. Some witnesses Saturday morning thought the fire started on the third  floor of the project. But the fire destroyed so much of the building, that nothing exists above the 2

^nd

floor now.

The fire on early Saturday morning was so hot it melted the siding on one home across the street and even melted the side of several cars parked on 6

^th

Street S.E. The damage to the large Oakhill Jackson Brickstone apartments was also more extensive than originally thought.

Dale Todd, a project manager for Hatch Development, said, “we'll have to replace every window - the casing and the jambs. We had siding damaged from the heat and the landscaping is pretty much killed.”

Sandersfeld said the foundation of the building is salvageable so the rebuilding will take less time than completely starting over.