Emerging from the Ashes .

Jim Heinhold got the call that a building on his family's property had been destroyed in a fire.

Heinold, a retired property manager living in Pensacola, Florida, owns 175 acres and 45 commercial buildings in northern Indiana. One of his tenants ran a tanker-washing operation in the building, and called to tell Heinold the 220- by 50-foot building had burned to the ground.

"It was an old building, and it certainly wasn't his fault," Heinold says. "But I knew I wanted to replace the building on the land, so I started doing some research."

Heinold's family had purchased the land and buildings-built in 1940 as a U.S. Army military ordinance compound-in 1964 to use as a poultry and livestock operation. In the 1970s, the Heinold family closed the operation and converted the property for industrial commercial development.

The tenant who owns the tanker-washing operation also leases two other structures on the property, so Heinold wanted to get another building to replace the loss. Because there was an uninsured loss in the fire, he had to get a cost-effective replacement.

He found Allied Steel and could not be happier about it.

"I'm not a contractor or a builder, and I'd never bought a building before," Heinold says. "They made my experience good for a neophyte. And it worked well from a cost perspective."

Heinold ordered a 120- by 50-foot building to replace the burned structure. He says the 100 feet of leftover slab works perfectly as a shuttling platform for the food tanker trucks to shuttle back and forth on.

He says that Allied Steel was great to work with, and that the company helped him with all the associated issues regarding the delivery, design and assembly of the building.

"I love everything about the building and Allied," Heinold says. "They gave me a complete insulation package, which is important because you can't work with water in northern Indiana in the winter without good insulation."

He was also impressed by the ease the building was erected by a local Indiana contractor.

"The guy I hired had never put up that kind of a building before," Heinold says. "But he had no trouble. Everything was there in the delivery and the instructions were dead on. I think that speaks to the ease of the process. In fact, I could have almost put it up myself, which is saying something."

For Heinold, it was good for him to get the building up and running on the property for his tenant so quickly and efficiently.

"This was an important tenant for me, because he has two other buildings on the land," he says.

Heinold says he had built up a successful roster of commercial uses for the buildings from a variety of different businesses. Upon his retirement and move to Florida, he took a less direct role in the property management.

"Now, I'll drive up from Florida and spend a few months up there seeing family and managing the properties," he says. "I'm happy with the new building and I know my tenant is. I'm glad I found Allied Steel."