October 22 Vallejo A&E Source Weekly Biz Buzz: Vallejo's Alco a scrap-metal phoenix rising from the ashes

Oct. 21--When the Alco Iron & Metal on Mare Island building burned down in a spectacular blaze, Gale White of Vallejo was literally left holding the bag.

White had been collecting aluminum cans for some time, planning to sell them to Alco around Aug. 20. The fire changed all that.

"I had a full bag of aluminum cans to take there that day, to donate the money for a friend," she said. "I have no idea what to do with those now."

There are at least two places in Vallejo that will buy California Refund Value (CRV) cans: Valcore Recycling (38 Sheridan St. 707-645-8258) and Replanet (1973 Broadway, 707-552-0549). Alco officials say they hope to rebuild and plan to re-establish that part of their business. Most of the rest of the business is still operational, they said. A Solano County "Recycling Guide" can be found under "Services" on the Solano County website's homepage.

Reports of the three-alarm fire came in about 11 p.m. Aug. 20, and was under control by about 4 a.m. the next day. It destroyed the 62,500 square-foot building the company bought in 2003 -- one of the first buildings purchased on the island after the transfer from the Navy. Company officials are still waiting to hear from the Vallejo Fire Department on the results of its investigation, they Chief Operating Officer Michael Bercovich says all indications are, it was an electrical fire.

"The plan is to rebuild. We're working with the insurance company," he said. "We've had some initial discussions with the city and they seem positive."

Bercovich said Alco was among Mare Island's earliest tenants in the mid 1990s and one of first to buy, with the sale closing in 2003 following an environmental cleanup. Company officials have no intention of letting anything -- even a massive fire -- chase them off. They're working out of a still-standing maintenance building and brought in some temporary trailers, he said. The building that was destroyed only took up two acres of the company's 15-acre site, he said.

"We're fully operational for the scrap metal recycling portion of our business, which is our main business, and have been since about a week or so after the fire," he said. "But the CRV business, which is a small but important part of our operation, is closed right now. Our hope is once we rebuild, that will reopen."

Co-owner Kari Fletcher said she and her siblings are eager to get back into the local CRV can-buying business.

"We'd love to be able to do it, but that operation was inside the building that burned down, and we don't have the space," she said. "That part of our operation was removed from this site for at least the next six months. We're in the process of rebuilding the facility. We're up and running on most everything else," she said.

Retail metal sales, the third arm of Alco's operation -- including pipes, tubes, plates, beams and the like, is also operational, Bercovich said..

"We're operational in that, though most of the material is being brought out of our other location in San Leandro," he said. "We're getting most of the material from there and will-calling it out of Vallejo."

In fact, the CRV can/bottle buy-back is the only part of Alco's operation not still going, he said. "We're disappointed we can't serve that part at this time, but we don't have the space for that until we rebuild."

Not that the fire wasn't devastating. It was, Bercovich said.

"Officials heard about it while it was happening and went out there," he said. "It was pretty catastrophic. We worked hard to get our temporary operation up and running quickly so we can continue serving our customers. We've been on Mare Island for 20 years, and we look forward to rebuilding our facility there once this process is completed."

Many personal items were lost in the fire -- mementos from her father's life -- that can't be replaced, Fletcher said. And whatever is rebuilt on the site, won't be as spectacular as the structure it's replacing, she said.

"We'll have a nice, new building, but it won't be as big and grand as the one the Navy built," she said.

Contact Rachel Raskin-Zrihen at (707) 553-6824.

___

(c)2015 Times-Herald (Vallejo, Calif.)

Visit Times-Herald (Vallejo, Calif.) at www.timesheraldonline.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.