New chapter for little Tri-Cities bookstore devastated by neighbor’s smoky fire
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- A fire in March caused Storytime Bookshop to relocate
- The community continues to bring in donations
- The business plans to reopen in a new location
After a fire next door forced Storytime Bookshop to start over, the much-loved bookstore is preparing to start a new chapter.
In March, owner Lorelei Kennedy nearly lost her business when a fire broke out in the neighboring restaurant, El Tequilas. Smoke and soot was trapped in every corner of her store, including her books, she said. She lost 95% of her inventory.
After short-lived hope of rehabilitating the space, Kennedy realized she had to move elsewhere because the entire building is going to have to be renovated.
In her new location just one block down from the previous building, Kennedy readies to welcome customers once again. Despite losing nearly all of her inventory, the support from the community has been overwhelming, she said.
“Kagen Cox over at Rockabilly (Roasting Company) started to organize a monetary fundraiser for the three affected businesses,” Kennedy said.
El Tequilas and Earth Spirit also are both recovering from the fire.
Kennedy said the fire department showed up to the fundraiser as well, describing them as community pillars.
The surrounding businesses, families and individuals have continued to bring hundreds to thousands of donations to Storytime Bookshop’s new location to help replenish the significant amount lost in the fire.
“You can tell, it makes me emotional,” Kennedy said. “(The community) has been collecting books for us, and over the last couple of weeks we’ve been donated over 3,000 books.”
Despite massive donations rolling in, Kennedy said it still has only made up for about a quarter of their initial inventory.
“Right now, we’re really focusing on the kids and middle readers. So, around fourth and seventh grade,” Kennedy said.
The bookshop is actively taking donations, replenishing graphic novels, children's books, young adult novels and craft supplies.
Their new location at 220 W. Kennewick Ave. in downtown Kennewick is around 3,000 square feet, including a massive storage room in the basement that runs underneath the two neighboring businesses where Kennedy has been able to store a large amount of donations.
There are also items left behind from the previous building’s tenant, Jennifer Felicitas, owner and founder of Impact! Compassion Center, who had to unexpectedly close down when her health took an unexpected turn.
This building has various rooms spread out over two floors, with ideas still flowing as to what they might turn into, Kennedy said.
“We’ve been getting a lot of feedback that people are looking for places to do podcast recording,” Kennedy said. “So, that could be a possibility.”
Kennedy said she hopes to open parts of the building one-by-one, starting with a story time area in the front of the shop, similar to the last location. She is already preparing with a rug and chair in the space for her to read to children ages five and under. The front room is planned to open later this month.
With the store’s upcoming opening comes new emotions for Kennedy.
“I think there’s actually a bigger sense of anticipation this time knowing that we’ve got the community really rooting for us,” Kennedy said. “In our last place we were like, ‘Yeah, we got this!’ and then we just totally did not have it at all.”
Now, surrounded by several thousand donated books and goods, Kennedy is able to focus on rebuilding her bookshop one shelf at a time.
