Emily Dean/Winonan

More than six months have passed since The Mason Jar was closed due to a fire that destroyed the local bar and apartments upstairs.

Unlike some of the other buildings in town that have been affected by fires in the last year, owner Chase Hoffman has plans to renovate the historical building.

Although Hoffman was not sure whether he wanted to restore the building right away, he said he and his wife began looking at the feasibility of restoring the building shortly after the accident occurred.

“Over the past 10 years we’ve had it, we put a lot of work into the apartments upstairs, and I think it’s a neat building. It brings a lot of character to that block,” Hoffman said.

Although the restoration is still in the planning stages, Hoffman said they are working with an architect and plan on adding additional apartments to the first floor, as well as leaving space open for a commercial business that would likely be rented by a bar like The Mason Jar.

As for college students who are still holding out for the reopening of The Mason Jar, Hoffman said they are in discussion with the previous owners to see if they want to rent the new commercial space.

The Mason Jar building was just one of many downtown locations affected by fires in the last few years. Other locations affected by fires include KidSport Gymnastics, Cha Chi’s Mexican Restaurant, Blooming Grounds, the Islamic Center of Winona and apartments for college students and community members.

Although it seems as if Winona has a worrying amount of fires in a year, the city’s Fire Marshal Jason Theusch said Winona has an average amount of fires for a town of this size.

“It’s not much different from any other industrial town. We have had a run of bad luck, but hopefully we won’t have another one for a while,” Theusch said.

Theusch said the cause of The Mason Jar fire has been undetermined.

The fire department has gotten more aggressive with inspections in the last couple of years, Theusch said.

Theusch also tries to spread fire prevention awareness to Winona State University students living on and off campus.

“I do fire extinguisher training for the RAs at the Tau center, and I’m almost positive that Winona state is almost completely covered with sprinkler systems. I’ve really been trying to stress the off-campus stuff,” Theusch said.

For students living off-campus, Theusch advises them to make sure fire detectors are up to date and to be in contact with their landlords about how often detectors get checked.

“We see a little bit of an increase of calls when students are in town, but we are always going to have fires,” Theusch said. “You are always going to have electric stuff, and sometimes you will have malicious stuff too, although we don’t see that happening a lot here in Winona.”