Downtown Denton Fire Suppression and Sprinklers

I just got out of a very interesting meeting at the City of Denton office on Elm St today. Bob Moses, John Cartwright, Marybeth Reinke and a Martino Properties property manager and I were in attendance. The City of Denton had a great representation from city personnel to Deputy Fire Marshal. As a business that insures buildings on the square and around it, I felt like it would only help to learn more about the issues that face building owners in and around Downtown Denton.

Fire suppression systems and fire sprinklers are 97% effective at containing a fire to the area or room where the fire originates. There is a large cost involved and local building owners have to struggle with the balance between high expenses of installation of a fire suppression and sprinkler system and the benefits received.

Local fires include:

• Downtown Mini Mall which completely devasted that building and it is now an empty lot. This fire also had a major effect on the surrounding businesses like Jupiter House Coffee shop and the clothing store on the north side of the Mini Mall. Not only was the Mall devastated, but those surrounding businesses were shut down for months while the smoke and water damage was mitigated and rebuilt
• The Barley and Board fire in 2024 was a kitchen fire that was properly contained using the vent a hood in the kitchen. Most likely it was a UL-300 which a fire suppression system for a commercial kitchen. These are required by some landlords in order for a restaurant to operate in their space.
• Historic fires that affected buildings all around the square in the last 100+ years.

It’s easy to see how local business might forego the $150-200k cost of installing a system when it means shutting down the businesses that occupy those buildings for a day or two while it’s installed. The flipside of that argument is that the building owner take extra efforts make sure that insurance is properly in place and at a much smaller cost which can be paid in payments. Unfortunately, insurance can start looking like a much more manageable way to deal with the potential losses that a fire present when you compare it to the out-of-pocket expenses of these systems.

The City of Denton is very proactive in trying to help local businesses with their incentives and there was talk about how the City of Lewisville has been able to almost completely fund the cost of these fire systems for their historic downtown buildings. Maybe we can learn how they are doing it.

Not only does a fire suppression keep businesses up and running, but it makes or breaks an insurance policy. Eligibility and price are factors that consumers need to be aware of when it comes to insuring a commercial building. The more favorable your building is engineered to be able to minimize a fire, the more insurance providers are going to show interest in providing coverage and that means the pricing will be more favorable. Companies like Travelers or Amtrust for example, will insure restaurants as long as they have the required hood vents in the kitchen and fire suppression. If a business doesn’t have some of these basic systems, we start peering toward the Excess and Surplus insurance market for coverage and that usually means non-admitted companies will have more volatile pricing and typically less coverage as well.

If you would like to talk to one of our agents about your business and reviewing your coverages, reach out to us at 940-268-5112 or set up a time to meet with us. There is a good chance that the insurance policy you have now is 100% sufficient and we can confirm that for your peace of mind.