Niamh Coomey BACK TO WORK — Wheeling Area Chamber of Commerce members, local leaders and staff of First Choice Realtors gather to celebrate the official reopening of the company’s main offices at a new location on 19th Street.

WHEELING — After a fire took out the First Choice Realtors office in Elm Grove back in December, the business’ main office is officially reopening at a new East Wheeling location.

The company’s original main offices, on the corner of Junior Avenue and National Road, suffered extensive water and smoke damage when the building caught fire on Dec. 5.

Though the Wheeling Fire Department responded to the scene and was able to get the flames under control, the Realtor’s offices and The Rose Tattoo Collective on the first floor of the building were severely damaged.

First Choice had occupied that office space since the late 1990s, and leadership described the loss as “devastating” for them.

Despite the hardships, First Choice Realtors dispersed to other local offices while the company secured the new space on 19th Street in East Wheeling in January.

“It’s refreshing, honestly, after everything we’ve gone through to be up and running. It’s kind of a relief and sort of like a new start,” said company partner and broker Tom Carpenter.

Members of Wheeling governance, First Choice employees and community members gathered for a ribbon cutting and celebration of their official opening on Tuesday afternoon to commemorate their business “rising from the ashes.”

Carpenter said though the situation was difficult, the company got to work right away finding a new location and getting it up to par.

“It was disappointing circumstances but we got to work and located a building and then had to get it set up to be an office,” Carpenter said. “It’s probably been two and a half months of my time to get it squared away and we’re really pleased with it.”

There have been some improvements to the office particularly in regards to better organization and more space.

“It’s a nicer space,” he said. “We’ve also got a separate storage area. If you walked around to the back of the old office you’d see a lot of old things that you don’t want sitting out. We’ve got a conference room and all new equipment now so those are improvements to the things we were losing.”

Everything was functioning by the end of February, Carpenter said, but the company is now getting fully settled.

“There was a lot to be done and once we got it to a point where it could at least function it was nice because this is our main office,” he said. “We have five offices but this was our main office, our books were here and everything so this was a lot to take on.”

Carpenter said he wants the community to know that First Choice is available to help with buying, selling and renting needs, and the new space is open for business.

“We’re here and ready to serve — not that we ever weren’t serving, we were doing the best we could — but we’re here anxious to help people and anyone that wants to stop by and see the space we would welcome that,” he said.