Local bar Crows Mill Pub caught fire around 9 a.m. on Aug. 29, 2016. The pub, located roughly one mile from the campuses of UIS and Lincoln Land Community College, suffered largely internal damage and is closed for the time being.

The renovated-schoolhouse-turned-bar is run by Springfield fireman Scott Weitekamp. Weitekamp met with the other owners and inspectors from the Illinois State Fire Marshal and Firetech Investigations – an independent investigation consultant – the morning after the blaze.

“Both [of the inspectors] said it looked like it was electrical,” Weitekamp said, referring to the cause of the fire. “They pinpointed the area around the ice machine.”

The inspections, which were handed over to the fire marshal to avoid conflict of interest, lasted for four hours. The fire marshal released the building to Weitekamp once they completed inspections.

Weitekamp hopes to begin rebuilding soon and aims to reopen Crows Mill Pub sometime within the next three to six months.

“We want to do a facelift,” Weitekamp said, mentioning his intentions to move the kitchen and refurbish the bathrooms while renovating. “I want to try to keep it the same way…as far as designing or decorating, it’s going to be the same way.”

UIS student and member of the local Phi Kappa Tau chapter Adam Tomaszewski often visited the pub with his friends at the end of the school week. “Thursday is when everybody…at UIS goes there,” Tomaszewski said with a laugh. “The whole room is full, the dance floor is full…it’s been really nice.”

Michael Rosenberg, a second year graduate student and Phi Kappa Tau advisor, remembers watching Crows become a campus nightlife staple. “I would say it increased a little bit once new ownership came along [two years ago]. They kind of rebranded it and made it more of a positive atmosphere.”

“What I love about all the college kids is there’s no fights,” Weitekamp said. “They’re really polite to the older costumers and there’s really no animosity. It truly is like a family.” He went on to recall a number of students showing up that Monday night to pay their respects to pub.

“A lot of the upper-class populations that did go [to Crows] are probably going to be pushed back to campus, now that there’s not a location for them to go mingle with everybody and hang out,” Rosenberg said. However, another local pub by the name of Sunset Inn hopes to provide a refuge of sorts for those displaced students.

Sunset Inn is located on South 6th Street, approximately three miles from the UIS campus. In light of the fire at Crows Mill, Sunset Inn implemented a Thursday night drink special for college students to enjoy.

“I would love for [the students] to come in and see what we can do for them,” Sunset Inn manager Jamie Richardson said. “It’s a smaller venue than what Crows Mill is, but I know there’s some of them that already come in on a regular basis, so I’d love to see more of them come in.”