Stores damaged in fire to reopen within weeks

By Adam Smeltz

STATE COLLEGE — Three stores displaced by a downtown fire last month are on pace to reopen within weeks, business owners said Wednesday.

An overnight blaze on Dec. 2 charred part of the Old Main Frame Shop, 136 E. College Ave., and damaged the adjacent Apple Tree and Kid’s Clothesline stores.

Wounds to the century-old structures, owned by Gentzel Corp., were substantial but not critical, proprietors said. Renovations and reconstruction already have begun, but the work is visible mainly from a rear alley — not the main thoroughfare.

“You tend to forget about insurance until something like this happens,” said Marie Librizzi, co-owner of the 31-year-old Old Main frame and art shop. It suffered the brunt of the fire, smoke and water damage and is expected to reopen there in April or May.

A temporary storefront is set up at 135 E. Calder Way, the former Physique Boutique. Librizzi said the frame shop lost materials worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, including 18,000 feet of molding used to make picture frames.

About 80 percent of inventory was ruined. But a room housing customers’ artwork — pieces waiting to be framed — was spared.

“Most of the art we get in is fine art or has a very personal, emotional value to people,” Librizzi said.

Insurance coverage at the frame shop, as at the neighboring businesses, has buoyed the fiscal recovery, even if it couldn’t salvage the holiday shopping season.

The Clothesline, now being remodeled and restocked after smoke infiltrated the place, will probably open before February, owner Benson Lichtig said.

At the Apple Tree, known for its selection of jewelry, tapestries and posters, owner Earle Harner said business is expected to resume Jan. 10 with a grand reopening sale.

All the merchandise there will be new, too, thanks to smoke damage that ruined the items that had been in stock.

None of the proprietors expressed any desire to leave the downtown. Gentzel Corp. owner Phyllis Gentzel could not be reached immediately on Wednesday.

Walt Wise, the fire marshal who inspected the structures, said he knew of no code violations at the site. The fire cause was electrical and in the basement below the frame shop, but Wise doesn’t know precisely how the sparks originated, he said.

He credited the sprinkler system with limiting the damage. About a decade ago, he said, a fire broke out in an adjacent storage room and was similarly snuffed out.

“Without the sprinkler system, the (recent) fire would have been right over to the ’skeller, for sure, and then right up on through,” Wise said, referring to the Rathskeller bar and Spats restaurant on Pugh Street.

Librizzi heaped praise on the Alpha Fire Company, which responded to the scene within minutes after receiving a call.

She also extended a word for her customers. Shortly after the fire, she said, she was fielding 250 to 300 phone calls a day.

“It’s so nice to be a small business that everyone can identify with, as opposed to one of those big-box stores where there’s no personalization,” Librizzi said. “It made me realize how much I enjoy being in small business.”

Adam Smeltz can be reached at 231-4631.