Construction Back On Track For Strip District Building Damaged In Fire
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - Two weeks after a three-alarm fire postponed work on a development site in the Strip District, construction resumed again Monday.
Crews were called to the 1600 block of Smallman Street around 4:30 a.m. on Sept. 30. The fire was contained within three hours.
McCaffery Interests is the company developing the site. CEO Dan McCaffery said a quick cleanup effort allowed construction to resume.
"We put some overtime crews out there in the first three or four days after the fire to clean everything up, get everything out of there," he said.
The majority of the damage was to the windows, which needed replaced before the fire, and to the wood floor.
"Something that we're learning nowadays in the development business, they're starting to build more wood buildings because in situations such as fires, they actually withstand fire better than steel," McCaffery said.
The fire is not expected to delay the project any further, and McCaffery believes it should be done by late spring, as originally expected.
"There was no structural damage at all," he said. "Just some burnt floorboards and we'll replace all of those and now we're up and running."
An official cause of the fire has not been released, but KDKA is told fire crews are investigating it as arson.
