The owners of City Blue Imaging, which has deep roots in the city of Rochester, is working to regroup and stay in business after a devastating fire on Christmas Eve.
It’s not what you might expect to hear from an owner of a company which burned to the ground. But Mark Cleary, president of City Blue Imaging, said that he actually feels “blessed.” He uses that word not only because there were no serious injuries as dozens of firefighters fought ahuge fire at his company’s facility on Scio St. on Thursday night, but because so many people have reached out via phone, text and social media to support City Blue and its staff.
Cleary says that includes other printing companies.
“Several of my competitors, the people from Canfield & Tack especially, have reached out to me personally and said, we are here for you guys, if you need us,” Cleary said. He noted that he will hire other printing companies to reprint jobs he had that were pending when the fire hit.
As the same time, he said that City Blue Imaging expects to look for a new location. Cleary said with the trend in Rochester’s East End moving toward housing and not as much manufacturing, he’d like to look for a new spot in the city and this time, lease a building, rather than build a new one.
“Maybe it’s just time for us to find a smaller space and we’ll kind of work on what we can do creatively to clean up and just take it from there,” Cleary said, emphasizing that the nearly century-old company definitely wants to remain in the city. “Much of our customers are still very much in the core of the city so I would just want to find a place that would be able to handle our equipment and that had a dock and then I’d be happy.”
But for now, Cleary will use some space that his neighbors on Scio St., the Rochester Quaker Meeting House, are making available for City Blue Imaging for a temporary spot for their business operations.
Cleary said that he is heartened by all of the support he has received from phone calls, texts and social media since the Christmas Eve fire.
“The thought that so many people on the holiday were taking time out to wish us well and multiple people said I’m here for you and how can we help, and…I felt very blessed,” Cleary said.
