TEMPLE, Texas (KXXV) — "The Temple Mall can expect inspections every few weeks until the majority of remaining issues are resolved," said Nohely Mackowiak, City of Temple.
Slowly, but surely, the more than 20 stores inside of Temple Mall are hoping to return to normal after it was shut down last week due to fire code violations.
"Now that the doors are open we are of course encouraging our community to make up for that week the the mall was closed," Mackowiak said.
The Fire Marshal gave the okay to reopen, even though several issues still need to be fixed, including building code, plumbing, and electrical violations.
The owners will receive citations for any unresolved issues.
"It doesn't come with uncertainty obviously since the tornado it been a little bit of a domino effect of issues with the mall but this time they were reactive quickly and got things done efficiently, " said Rob Brandenburg, Owner of Peggy’s Coffee House.
Brandenburg is pushing the stock to his business, and he says he feels a sense of relief for him and his employees to be back at work.
25 News spoke to other business cameras off-camera, who say they're also excited to reopen their doors inside the mall and thankful for all the community support during the closure.
The City of Temple says there's no timeline to fix the remaining issues, but the hope is it will be sooner rather than later.
"Visit those stores inside the mall and give them the business that they deserve," Mackowiak said.
Many of the people 25 News spoke with off-camera, say it is heartbreaking to see so many empty stores — they say the temple mall used to give life to the community members and hope to see this mall operating to its full potential again.
