WILMINGTON — “I don’t want this to go unnoticed or miscategorized as just some storm damage,” Justin Mitchener, owner of Brand Engine, said. “This is neglect, over years.”
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It was part of his message emailed to Wilmington City Council members Friday morning after suffering through a roof collapse at his downtown business at 205 Princess St.
Mitchener, who opened Brand Engine almost a decade ago, has emailed the property management company, Wilmington’s Best Rentals, roughly eight times a year “at least,” he said, expressing concerns about the building’s structural integrity and leaks. He sent photographs and videos (scroll to the bottom to see one of the interior after Thursday’s collapse); many were viewed by Port City Daily from 2021 through 2023, showing water stains down walls and peeling ceilings.
While a few instances of patching happened here and there, Mitchener said the management team never worked to get to the root cause and properly correct issues with the 125-year-old structure.
Now, he’s asking the city council to do more to protect the public, especially when it comes to historic properties.
“I know a large portion of the board is made up of real estate developers; I’m a graphic designer and out of my depth on this, but surely there is a way to require mandatory building inspections, much like we are required yearly fire inspections,” Mitchener wrote in his email. “There has to be a way to prevent an inevitable catastrophe and insure public safety.”
New Hanover County is the entity that oversees building inspections in compliance with North Carolina Administrative Code, but only on new construction or when a structure undergoes renovations. According to spokesperson Alex Riley, its database goes back to 2014.
“No permits or inspections have been requested for 205 Princess Street for renovations or construction during that time frame,” Riley wrote in an email to Port City Daily Friday.
NHC Commissioner Rob Zapple, also an appointed member of the state’s Building Code Council, said the county had the authority to expand its ordinance to require annual inspections of commercial property.
Currently, fire does inspect safety issues, including fire protection systems, some building maintenance and exits, yearly. The city fire department inspects downtown properties.
A City of Wilmington spokesperson said its code office hasn’t received complaints from tenants or otherwise about 205 Princess St.
“We have no case history regarding deferred maintenance or building concerns in almost 25 years of records,” Lauren Edwards said.
However, since yesterday’s condemnation made on behalf of the county, the city has opened a case “to track the current situation,” Edwards added.
The county said structural engineer Tim Hines has been hired to review the building’s condition.
Zapple suggested the county may want to broaden inspections into structural issues considering the age of some of its downtown buildings.
“We should have, especially for historic buildings, an annual façade, if not interior, inspection,” he said.
Wilmington City Council member Charlie Rivenbark agreed and confirmed the city contracts out its building inspections with the county.
“I would not be against tightening them up a little bit,” he said. “I think the roof collapse is certainly something that, you know, it raises your eyebrow. I mean, that could be deadly.”
Wilmington City Council member Salette Andrews spoke in favor as well.
“It’s an old city,” she said “We’ve got a lot of older buildings and it’s important to enforce building codes.”
It’s not the first building to face safety issues in downtown Wilmington as of late. Just five months ago, a row of properties along Grace Street — Rumcow, Tacobaby, and Kat 5 Kava — had to shutter and undergo construction after the façade of Tacobaby fell, due to decay. Piles of bricks landed in the properties, on the sidewalk and vehicles, and shattered windows and doors. It left one person with minor injuries.
A county engineer cleared the buildings of structural failure and businesses were able to open shortly thereafter.
Upon the idea of expanding inspections annually, Rivenbark added city staff would need to present council with recommendations to determine the depth.
“How do you inspect façade?” he asked rhetorically. “I mean, you’re talking about getting into the weeds … so it needs to be scrutinized a little bit. I would rely on our staff and the engineers to come back to us with something that I could hang my hat on.”
The roof collapse
Mitchener launched Brand Engine almost a decade ago and awoke Thursday to a phone call from his chief marketing officer, Michael Ussery.
“‘Don’t panic but the roof has collapsed — and it’s bad,’” Mitchener recalled hearing on the other end of the line.
Upon arrival, sheetrock and drywall, exposed wires and beams were apparent, as the front portion of the second-story roof fell through the first-floor ceiling. Mitchener said while the 10 inches of rain pouring from Tropical Storm Debby was the final straw, the water damage and structural issues of the building go back far before.
“There’s central air that was added probably 20 or 30 years ago,” he said, “and basically water pooled up there and just knocked out the entire ceiling downstairs for the most part. There’s just gaping holes everywhere. We found water on the stairway, too, so at some point, water rushed down the stairs.”
Mitchener called the property management company, which immediately sent a roofer. Though he couldn’t provide a fix, he entered into a crawl space, Mitchener said, and determined beams were vulnerable and the front window looked like it was going to fall out.
By 1 p.m. the Wilmington Fire Department was on the scene and found drywall and debris mixed in with “an influx of leaking water,” according to WFD spokesperson Rebekah Thurston. She also verified the location “likely had already sustained some damage from leaking during other rain storms.”
Zapple said the inspection director for New Hanover County, Hans Schult, relayed to him the ceiling joists and rafters were rotted.
“That’s just an inattentive landlord not paying attention, easily identifiable if the building owner wasn’t going to do it,” he said, the last part referring to the possibility of expanding inspections. “It’s a real public hazard and health and safety issue.”
The Brand Engine crew will be working from home for now. Mitchener sent an email to Wilmington’s Best Thursday afternoon:
“The building is condemned. Needless to say, our lease is null and void.”
He expressed indignation over the dangerous risks, calling the problems a “ticking time bomb” that could have cost a life. The building is owned by a former Robeson County family judge, John Carter Jr., who as fate would have it, Mitchener has been in contact with years before.
Ahead of starting Brand Engine, Mitchener was a partner in the local company Freaker; it once had offices on Castle Street, also owned by Carter. Mitchener said his office had a clear view of the sky at one point due to roof failure. He told PCD and wrote in his email to the management company:
“Same issues of neglect of that property, that is until his daughter stopped by one day and maybe he was embarrassed into action,” Mitchener indicated. “When you talk to him, or forward this email to him, I would like you to convey my extreme anger at his rank hypocrisy as a judge.”
Mitchener said the property company called him back Friday morning, expressing the damage wasn’t his fault.
“I’m aware of that,” he said he responded.
Port City Daily reached out to Wilmington’s Best Rentals to ask why further action wasn’t taken throughout the years on Mitchener’s many complaints and if it would consider recouping his investments, whether in the form of rent or deposit payments. A response was not received by press.
Mitchener wrote in his email to them that all matters should be handled moving forward through insurance representatives and lawyers.
“This could have been gravely different,” Mitchener told PCD.
A lot of the damage ended up on Ussery’s desk and it’s not unusual for the crew to normally be on site that early in the morning, but Debby altered office work Thursday.
Mitchener and Ussery have been attempting to salvage equipment: computers, servers, cameras — including irreplaceable vintage ones — as well as lenses, lights, furniture, and raw images and files. Early estimates of financial impact are in the tens of thousands.
“It looks like a total loss,” Mitchener said, unable to put a solid number on it currently as they continue to work through insurance claims and meet with adjusters. “But we have backup after backup after backup of our clients’ data so we are safe there.”
The design agency helps businesses refine their approach and outreach through content creation, website and logo design; it has clients including Chicago’s Narwhal Studios (which works with Marvel) and AC Hewitt development company, as well as other locals like Monteith Construction, Marina Grill, Cameron Art Museum and Fortunate Glass.
Mitchener, who loves downtown and has spent the majority of the last two or more decades there, said the outpouring of support has been uplifting from clients, friends and neighbors. The buildings on either side of his business did not sustain damage.
He has plans to be have another physical location likely near the riverfront, still, and said Wilmington Downtown Inc. reached out immediately after the incident.
“They were great,” Mitchener said, “talking about grant programs they could offer. We’re going to sit down at some point, once we get past insurance stuff, to talk. But, right now, the big takeaway for me is, thank God no one got hurt.”
Some interviews for this piece were conducted by Peter Castagno
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