LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Less than one week after a warehouse was destroyed in a fire in Louisville's Smoketown neighborhood, there's notice that it will soon be demolished.
In the pile of debris, there's a note posted that says the structure is an "emergency demolition candidate" and has been referred to be demolished.
Smoke and fire came rolling out of the four-story building Monday afternoon. It partially collapsed. Firefighters evacuated before the collapse. There were no major injuries reported.
The more than 60,000 square foot warehouse is owned by Wayside Christian Mission. Wayside's chief operating officer, Nina Moseley, told WDRB News Tuesday that the building was used for storage and was about half full. It contained rolls of carpet, furniture, office supplies, and kitchen equipment.
Now all those items, along with collapsed brick and lumber, are in a pile on the ground.
"It was such a blessing to have this building because we could accept large donations of items we would need and have them ready at hand to move in and out of the shelter and the hotel as needed. It was just so convenient," Moseley said the day after the fire.
She said as soon as she heard about the smoke rolling from the building, she went to see for herself. She said she stayed for hours and couldn't do anything but watch it burn.
"It's just unbelievable. We've never been through anything like this before. So, kind of just at a total loss here," she said.
Moseley said Wayside serves more than 2,000 meals every day between its homeless shelter downtown and Hotel Louisville. Now, losing this building and its contents will have an impact if something needs a replacement.
"We have commercial kitchens at both our locations," Moseley said. "It was important to be able to have that equipment and if we needed something we had it right there. We could move it in and out."
Moseley said at this point, Wayside is asking for prayers.
"It's going to take us a while to find our feet again and figure out what the next steps are," she said.
Thursday, Moseley met WDRB News back out at the site.
"It's just like a nightmare that doesn't end," she said Thursday. "But we've been back every day, we've been working on it, trying to get demolition quotes. It has to come down. The city has ordered it down. We're trying to do that as quickly as possible."
Moseley said the building is a total loss and there is nothing salvageable. She said demolition could begin as soon as Friday.
A GoFundMe has now been created to help Wayside. On its website, it mentions in addition to the furniture and supplies, the warehouse also contained thousands of N95 face masks. The goal of the GoFundMe is $50,000.
For a direct link to the GoFundMe, click here. For a link to the Wayside Christian Mission website, click here.
Moseley said the building was insured and she's waiting to hear back from the insurance company, but said the demolition cost and cost to replace supplies is very high.
Wayside is also in the process of looking for a new place to store belongings.
"If anyone has leads on a storage facility downtown, there are things we need but we just can't ask for those things yet because we have no place to put them, you know," said Moseley.
She said it's unclear if Wayside will be able to rebuild a warehouse in this same location on Caldwell Street.
"This was a factory built in 1890," she said. "Then it was used as a warehouse so when we bought it eight years ago, the warehouse usage was grandfathered in. To build something new, if it doesn't fit into the zoning, then there's a lot of hoops to jump through to maybe get approval to do that."
Moseley said if they can't rebuild a warehouse here, she'd like to see the spot turned into affordable housing.
The building next door houses an organization called Loaves and Fishes, Inc. It helps feed people on the streets and provide legal help. The executive director said the building suffered smoke and water damage that will have a "tremendous impact" on the community that relies on these services.
The cause of the fire has not yet been determined and is still under investigation.
"We'd love to know what happened here. Not that that's going to help anything long term. We're grateful no one was hurt," said Moseley.
Maj. Bobby Cooper with Louisville Fire said demolition of the building will not impact the investigation. He said it is simply too dangerous to send people inside and the investigation will rely heavily on video and surveillance footage. Cooper said it will likely be a lengthy investigation.
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