Kloter Farms: One Year Later

One year ago today, the early morning quiet was broken by sirens as .

In the year since the fire, a lot of work has been done at the site and Marketing Director Todd Root says that the business is hoping for a late-August, early-September grand reopening. No firm date has been set yet, as interior construction is continuing and exterior details are being finalized.

“The grand re-opening will be a culmination of all the work that has been put in,” he said.

Root said that the fire was a challenge in many ways – operationally, financially, and spiritually – but that the business was actually maintained and grown in the last year.

“What has happened in the least year is that we’ve been able to overcome the obstacles of reorienting the business because of our showroom being down, rising to the challenge of and creating a whole , and sustaining the buisiness even though we were displaced,” he said. “It’s been really terrific. We are really thrilled with how well we were able to succeed given this obstacle, especially with the way the economy has been.”

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Instead of closing that portion of the business, the showroom moved down the street onto Main Street and into what was a storage facility for the building.

“We just shifted gears and created a new showroom in a matter of weeks,” he said.

Immediately after the fire, the community rallied around the business, and that has continued.

“That support has sustained itself,” he said. “The community, both locally and region-wide, has stayed by us.”

On Friday afternoon, Kloter Farms will hold a ceremony - with some of the first responders - to commemorate the anniversary.

In November the fire marshal concluded that the cause of the fire was “ but was believed to have been a factor.