By SCOTT MCKIE B.P.
One Feather Asst. Editor
CHEROKEE, N.C. – The Kituwah, LLC building burned in a fire on the morning of Thursday, Dec. 15. Cherokee Fire Dept. officials noted they were dispatched to the scene at 1:55 a.m. and, joined by crews from Bryson City, Qualla, Maggie Valley, and Savanna, extinguished the fire. They note that the cause is under investigation.
The adjacent Kituwah Global Government Group, LLC building received slight fire and water damage.
The Kituwah, LLC building burned in a fire on the morning of Thursday, Dec. 15. Cherokee Fire Dept. officials noted they were dispatched to the scene at 1:55 a.m. and, joined by crews from Bryson City, Qualla, Maggie Valley, and Savanna, extinguished the fire. They note that the cause is under investigation. The adjacent Kituwah Global Government Group, LLC building received slight fire and water damage. (SCOTT MCKIE B.P./One Feather photos)
Mark Hubble, Kituwah LLC executive director, commented, “Thankfully, no one was injured. I have already met with the Fire Chief. We also met with the police on site. We arranged for all first responders to get anything they needed (coffee, food, etc.) from Waffle House. When you watch that many people respond and just the absolute level of professionalism and coordination it’s, in a weird way, an amazing experience.”
He said that operations will continue on as normal as possible. “It will obviously cause some minor disruption while the building is demolished and rebuilt, but both the premises, contents, and business operations are well-insured. We will temporarily relocate some employees to both offices at the model center and the Chestnut Tree back offices.”
Hubble added, “We should experience little to no loss of data because we back up automatically to both redundant servers and the cloud. We will actually rebuild a larger matching two-story, more energy efficient building that will align with the new add-on that suffered only minor damage, and we believe that there will be no material financial impact on the Company.”
“We still expect profits to increase for the third year in a row by more than 100 percent, and we still expect the distributions to the Tribe to increase by 500 percent this coming year. We also fully expect the new building to be two times as large as the portion to be demolished to accommodate our rapidly expanding office staff, significantly more than half of whom are enrolled EBCI (Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians) members, at little to no material cost to the Tribe or Kituwah, LLC.”
Looking to the future, Hubble noted, “We fully expect to be at least a $1 billion company by assets within 24 months with no additional asks from the Tribe to reach that number. We have received an overwhelming outpouring of support from around the globe and from local, state, federal and Tribal leadership.”
He further thanked people for the support following Thursday’s fire. “Once again, I truly and most heartfeltly want to thank the myriad of first responders on the scene with us overnight. Watching that level of coordination is a moment in one’s life you don’t forget.”
The One Feather will report more as it is known.
