Jun 17, 2005

White’s Sustains Fire DamageSource: Garden Media Group

A May 24 fire at White’s Nursery, Chesapeake, Va., caused an estimated $600,000 worth of damages. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Head Grower at White’s, Bob Bailey, was the first to discover the fire. “I heard the burglar alarm set off by glass breaking in the fire,” said Bailey, who responded by calling the Chesapeake emergency dispatch.

The city of Chesapeake’s Deep Creek Fire Station spent two hours fighting the fire, which consumed of the interior of the Nursery’s retail garden center and damaged one production greenhouse. The garden center constitutes 33 percent of the garden center sales area.

White’s hard goods area, offices, registers, telephone, electrical and HVAC systems were completely destroyed. White’s will spend at least seven months rebuilding.

Despite the loss, White’s has been able to maintain its staff because of strong retail spring sales and fire clean up efforts. And, White’s will still be able serve as a host location for the Eastern Performance Trials this September.

Ernest Wertheim of Wertheim, Van Der Ploeg, & Klemeyer of San Francisco, Calif., will work with White’s Nursery to re-create the damaged areas to meet the needs of today’s garden center customer, and X.S. Smith, Inc. of Red Bank, N.J., will supply the professional engineering services and greenhouse structural components for re-building.