When Alex Levine got the call Wednesday night that fire had broken out at Adcor Industries? warehouse, the company?s chief financial officer rushed to the scene, where millions of dollars of product was stored.
“Looking at the fire, it was hard to comprehend what had happened,” Levine said. “We started the business at that location 15 years ago, and it was our primary distribution center where we stored our product. We lost a significant amount of inventory ? our losses are in the millions.”
Adcor Industries is a business-to-business manufacturer of precision-machined components for the beverage industry. With clients around the world, including in Australia, Korea, England and the Caribbean, its warehouse on 900 South Grundy Street stored a huge amount of its product line.
“We are doing what we can to recover quickly,” Levine said. “We are a privately held company and don?t want to give a competitive advantage to any competitors by releasing numbers or product losses.”
Baltimore City Fire Department building inspectors visited the site Thursday.
“We had to condemn the building,” said Kevin Cartwright, chief of public information for the fire department. “The owners will have to prepare to demolish it.”
The fire department estimated total losses to Adcor, including inventory and its warehouse, to be close to $8 million.
“We are still evaluating whether we will rebuild at that [South Grundy Street] location or find an alternative warehouse facility,” said Levine, who works out of Adcor?s corporate offices on South Haven Street. “No lives were lost, and no jobs will be lost.”
While Adcor tallies up its losses, city fire investigators continued to look into the cause of the blaze. Several Adcor employees were interviewed by fire investigators.
“We are investigating the fire, but nothing stands out to us right now to indicate that this was a case of arson,” Cartwright said. “However, it remains under investigation.”
