By Greg Gaudio
VIRGINIA BEACH
A fire at Teddy Riley's Future Records Recording Studios last month was caused by an electrical problem, according to the results of a fire department investigation released Tuesday.
The fire was reported shortly before 5 a.m. on June 24 at the former R&B star's empty studio on Virginia Beach Boulevard.
Heavy lightning in the area could have been a contributing factor, even though it didn't strike the building directly, said Battalion Chief David Hutcheson, a spokesman for the Virginia Beach Fire Department.
"There's no hidden agenda here," he said.
The studio was on the selling block at the time of the fire and failed to fetch a bid at auction a month earlier.
The building was insured for $336,000, said Morris H. Fine, an attorney who is selling the property for Equitable Resources Inc., Riley's biggest creditor. The value of the land will have to be re-appraised because of the fire.
Prior to the fire, the city of Virginia Beach had offered to purchase the property and develop it as a dredge site, Fine said. That offer remains on the table.
"To some limited degree, the city is going to get the property at a cheaper price because I will give them credit for the amount that I receive from the insurance," said Fine.
Riley has been dogged by financial and legal problems for years.
He filed for bankruptcy in 2002 but still owed the Internal Revenue Service about $1 million in unpaid taxes. His home in Church Point was sold in 2006 for $1.5 million, and the proceeds were used to pay tax debts.
The studio has been plagued by debt, too.
Equitable, which holds a lien on the property, attempted to auction it off in May to help recoup a $700,000 loan Riley took out in 2005 and subsequently defaulted on. No one met the $500,000 opening bid.
The 3,300-square-foot studio opened in 1991. Riley produced songs there for his group BLACKstreet as well as artists such as Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson and Heavy D.
Greg Gaudio, (757) 222-5125, greg.gaudio@pilotonline.com
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I thought...
I thought the building was not in use? As for the credit that was mentioned for the city, the land is worth more w/o the building on it.
Good advice Laura....
but I would assume when a structure is built a qualified electrician did the wiring. I have no idea whether this building had other overload issues as Ethan mentioned [in his experience] -- but every now and then there are fires from electrical problems. Without further reporting on these fires, again, I would have to assume it's wiring in the wall/socket/permanent connection that caused the problem. Not really knowing anything about wiring and having a health respect for electricity can anyone tell me whether wiring gets 'old'?
Electrical
Yea, electrical fires scare me as well. I generally go through lengths to figure out what larger equipment draws amperage wise, and make sure that nothing is ever over loaded. I feel the breakers to make sure they aren't getting warm. Back when I had the clubhouse, I had a monitor setup that was telling me real time what the load was on each phase, or line, of the power coming in. To mess with the laser system or very large computers I had to carefully swap out the breakers on the panel live, to avoid interrupting other systems. Crazy times. I had thought about a system that if smoke was detected by a fire alarm panel to trigger a contactor to disconnect all power, but I'm not sure if that would be advantageous. Never use damaged cords, and beware of damaged outlets as well.
sure there is...
use a qualified electrician!
electrical/wiring.....
problems that start fires scare me. I'm not sure there's any way to protect against those.