GENTRY — A Gentry business destroyed by fire last month is clearing the way to rebuild and reopen next month.
Movie Zone and Mike’s Mower Parts, located along Gentry Blvd., was destroyed on the afternoon of Nov. 19 when a fire which started in the shop area quickly spread up the walls and into the attic area.
On Friday, the remains of the building had been reduced to a pile of rubble which was being scooped up with a front-end loader and placed into a large trash container for disposal.
Business owner Mike Nunn said he wasn’t sure at first whether he would rebuild but then decided to put up a new building more suitable to his business needs and more customer friendly and reopen as soon as possible - hopefully in about a month, he said as he helped with the cleanup.
Nunn said he will be putting up a metal building from Adams Truss which will give him more room for his mower parts and have a better parking area for customers.
The front portion of his old building, which Nunn thought was once a driveup ice cream business, made parking difficult. The new building will be situated to make it easier for customers to park in front of the business, he said.
Nunn lost all his movies - except those rented out at the time of the fire - and many of his mower parts in the Novemberfire. In addition to the new building, Nunn will be replacing his movie inventory and plans to stock more mower parts than before. He’s also hoping that those who had movies rented out at the time of the fire will keep them until the Movie Zone reopens and then bring them back.
Though the task of cleaning up, rebuilding and restocking is daunting, Nunn said the new start is kind of exciting because he hopes to have a better business setup than he had before the fire.
Nunn did say he planned to focus on safety in both the construction and setup of his new business location to do all he can to prevent such an event like the November fire from ever happening again.
News, Pages 3 on 12/26/2012