Stores still closed after mall fire

Several stores and restaurants affected by a recent fire at Ala Moana Center remain closed.

Bag ‘n Baggage reopened yesterday, while Aeropostale, Papyrus, Yummy Korean BBQ, Soba-ya and Panda Express have not.

Scott Creel, group marketing manager of General Growth Properties, Ala Moana’s management firm, said there are no damage estimates available at this time.

Bag ‘n Baggage manager Chantal Migita said the retailer suffered a loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in merchandise after heavy smoke came through vents. Soot damaged 80 percent of the store’s merchandise.

Migita said employees restocked the store with new products from an off-site storage room.

Cleanup is continuing at the second-floor store that sells luggage, small leather goods, travel accessories and other items.

Damaged merchandised was shipped out and could not be sold.

"There was soot on everything," said Migita. "We don’t know what chemical could possibly be in the soot. We don’t want to endanger anyone."

"It was a corporate decision to make sure that we didn’t sell anything that was contaminated," she added.

Asked whether they hope to drive up sales in the remaining days of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings, Migita said, "We’re not going to be able to recoup. We lost too many days. We’ll just have to move forward." Migita said they had hoped to boost revenue this week with the thousands of APEC attendees.

Heavy smoke from a kitchen fire on Nov. 3 at Panda Express in the center’s ground-floor Makai Market Food Court affected dozens of stores and restaurants on the second and third levels.

Most of the affected restaurants at the food court reopened the same day, but other restaurants and stores remain closed because of smoke and water damage.

Papyrus, a greeting card and stationery store next to Bag ‘n Baggage, hopes to reopen this weekend.

Management at Aeropostale, a retail clothing store on the third floor, could not be reached.