Some businesses in Kensington Avenue plaza remain closed after $3 million fire

The laundromat is among six businesses closed until further notice after a fire broke out Saturday afternoon in the Cleve-Hill Medical Park plaza at the corner of Kensington Avenue and Eggert Road.

The fire in the strip mall started in an office space between the laundromat and a Rent-A-Center store, according to Buffalo fire investigators. The office space was home to DaVita Dialysis and Buffalo SNUG, an anti-violence organization.

No one was injured and the Fire Department is continuing to investigate the cause of the blaze, which resulted in about $3 million worth of damage. Buffalo Fire Department Division Chief Tom Meldrum said in a WIVB interview Saturday there’s a “good possibility” that part of the building will need to be demolished and rebuilt.

A Family Dollar store and Olivia’s Oasis, a local event planning business, are in the same strip plaza and also remain closed due to the fire.

Across the plaza, a separate strip of businesses – including Buffalo Pharmacies, Klassic Kuts Barber Shop, Nail Stop salon, Kensington Pizza and Metro by T-Mobile – were not affected by the fire and remain open.

The parking lot of the plaza was mostly empty on Sunday, aside from a few people who pulled up to the Family Dollar looking to do some shopping, but returned to their vehicles and left after realizing the store was closed. Two workers from Paul Davis Restoration in Rochester were outside cleaning up broken glass and debris left over from the fire.

Mike Gersitz, who owns Nickel City Laundromat, said he got to the plaza about 15 minutes after the fire was reported. He initially thought the fire had started in his laundromat.

Though the fire did not spread to Gersitz’s businesses, the laundromat was damaged from the smoke.

“We cleaned the water up and it just smells heavily of smoke,”…