Downtown Hillsboro Fire Aftermath: Behind the Scenes of the Push to Reopen Main Street

Dramatic images of Downtown Hillsboro's Weil Arcade building engulfed in flames spread across social media on the first Sunday morning of 2022 - seemingly as fast as the four-alarm fire itself.

At the time, no one knew the blaze that destroyed the two-story, 20,000-square-foot building built in 1918 on Main Street, was in fact a fatal fire, taking the life of 40-year-old Ronald William Knapp.

The massive damage to the century-old structure rendered it unstable and prevented investigators from getting inside safely until six weeks later. Then, they discovered Knapp's body and moved to escalate criminal charges against Roel Leon beyond first-degree arson to include second-degree murder.

What was immediately clear was the devastating toll on Downtown businesses - those directly impacted by the fire and those along Main Street, those that saw access to their storefronts between 2^nd and 3^rd avenues temporarily taken away, and those in the vicinity as well.

As small business owners and employees began to pick up whatever pieces they could and put together a plan to make ends meet, Weil Arcade building owner Jay Weil felt the pressure to pick up the pace of clean-up efforts along Main Street.

Months later, the Hillsboro Community Foundation had distributed $131,589 in community donations to businesses impacted by the fire - and an additional $30,000 to nearby residents impacted by an earlier apartment fire. Main Street had once again opened to all forms of pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicular traffic. And those directly involved in the cleanup recalled in their own words what was happening behind the scenes in the push to reopen Main Street.

'A huge mess - and a crime scene'

"After the fire, we had a huge mess - and a crime scene for an entire month. We felt a lot of pressure from the City and the community and the businesses to get at least one lane open on Main Street. We all felt the strong obligation to move quickly and safely to help Downtown Hillsboro's recovery begin. I hired a large national contractor and it didn't work out. They were unable to do what we needed in a timely manner. We needed to make a change. That's when I called Gene Zurbrugg, owner of Zurbrugg Construction and an old family friend." - Jay Weil, owner of the Weil Arcade property.

Gene Zurbrugg was aware of the massive fire in the early hours of January 2. He received a phone call from the fire marshal about a car fire outside a Downtown building that Zurbrugg owns. At that time, the Fire Marshal notified him about the ongoing four-alarm fire.

In the days that followed, Zurbrugg offered fire-displaced tenants temporary rent discounts within his buildings, as well as month-to-month leases so they could have some flexibility to continue their business. But that was easy compared to the work that would be needed to get the Weil Arcade stabilized and the debris removed.

"The City was concerned about safety and the Fire & Rescue Department was cautious about going into an unstable building to do its inspections. The City was on Jay's case to get things moving and he asked me if I would take over the project." - Gene Zurbrugg, owner of Zurbrugg Constructions & several Downtown buildings.

Chief Building Inspector John Bernards of the City of Hillsboro's Community Development Department's Building Division was the one applying whatever pressure Weil and Zurbrugg felt.

"I suppose I did put a little pressure on them, but not in a bad way, and he felt that pressure himself I'm sure. We were eliminating bureaucratic hurdles to get the job done quickly - and safely - in order to reopen the street as soon as possible to help businesses get back in full operation. The pressure started from our City leadership by putting in writing a set date to work toward completion. I was pushing them in offering help in whatever way we could to get them working." - John Bernards, Chief Building Inspector with the City of Hillsboro Community Development Department's Building Division

Zurbrugg and Weil would meet on Main Street where Zurbrugg offered an assurance that we could get the job done, then Zurbrugg connected with Bernards to discuss securing the wall.

"The building was unstable and unsafe to enter. Having it be a crime scene complicated matters. Everybody had to be recorded going in and out. Not allowing people in due to the dangerous situation with the debris, it just made it a much more challenging cleanup effort. We wanted to get the front wall stabilized. It was an unreinforced masonry building, meaning it had no rebar or anything. Without the roof or the interior wall supporting the front wall, these are notoriously fragile buildings." - John Bernards

"A day after Jay hired me, I got some bracing and we braced the front wall to the point it could not fall on Main Street. We stabilized that. Then the Hillsboro Fire & Rescue Department went in to do its investigation.

I immediately got the ball rolling, got the resources we needed, and within a week, week-and-a-half, we had construction crews in there moving debris." - Gene Zurbrugg

"We hired Northwest Demolition & Dismantling Corporation to demolish and remove the rubble and materials. They worked continuously for about 20 days and eventually got to the main wall, which was dismantled and removed in April. A day later, we opened Main Street completely." - Jay Weil

"The Municipal Code discusses dangerous buildings and deadlines for safety measures and building remediation that we use to protect the community. Working with the City Engineer, we came up with a bracing plan that helped us get one lane open on Main Street, while they worked on dismantling the building from the rear access off of Lincoln Street. It worked well. - John Bernards

"The City of Hillsboro helped us get started. They were cooperative, they wanted us to move quickly, but they were wonderful throughout this whole thing. There was asbestos in the building so we had to get an asbestos survey, hire an asbestos contractor, and take care of that process to remove the asbestos. We had to treat everything as asbestos and the cleanup took longer because of the asbestos. It would have been much quicker and less expensive without the asbestos complications and the environmental requirements for cleaning up asbestos and treating fire-impacted materials as asbestos." - Gene Zurbrugg

"We lost time because of the criminal investigation and dealing with the asbestos - and the extra requirements to remediate the asbestos." - John Bernards

'This is what we do'

In early March, fencing that had been installed on Main Street to protect businesses and pedestrians across the street from the Weil Arcade building was moved back to allow one lane of traffic to reopen on the south side of the street. As the demolition continued, access was restored.

On Thursday, April 21, 2022, the second lane of Main Street opened - and pedestrians had full access to the sidewalk outside the former Weil Arcade site.

"Gene was just tremendous in overseeing this whole project for me as my general contractor. He never let the crew sit around for more than 10 minutes without getting on them to get the work completed. I'm really grateful that the Zurbrugg and Weil families teamed up once again, as we have in the past, to help Downtown Hillsboro." - Jay Weil

"This is what we do. I was hired to do the job and doing the job is what I did. You give the credit to the person paying the bill. Jay was excellent throughout this whole thing. A lot of property owners would be ticked off and feeling sorry for themselves. Jay was upbeat throughout this whole process and I can't think of anyone who I would rather be working for. Jay is the one who had the wherewithal and the financial resources and the insurance to pay for this cleanup project and get it done. If he didn't have the resources, the community would have been stuck with a big eyesore for longer, maybe years. We've still got work to do, but we're making progress." - Gene Zurbrugg

"Working with Gene and Jay was great. They did the best they could do with the situation in front of them and we can all be grateful that the building is no longer a safety hazard and the road is open to support Downtown's recovery from the fire." - John Bernards

Moving Forward

According to Zurbrugg, several businesses and organizations that temporarily located inside the 1890 Building at 2^nd & Main are now planning to stay there permanently. The single-level shops out to Lincoln Street that previously connected to the Weil Arcade were damaged, but not destroyed. Weil says they are currently being remodeled. What's next for the Weil Arcade site on Main Street is unknown at this point.

"Our short-term plan is to fill the site to get it back to grade level, and then we will work with the community and business leaders - and the City - to determine our next steps." - Jay Weil

"We are going to have a hole in our Downtown for the foreseeable future, and it would be nice to see a new building on that site eventually down the road. Someday we'll have a new building on that site. It's just a matter of when and the economic feasibility." - Gene Zurbrugg

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