‘The company will survive’: Qualco chemical plant spared from worst of Passaic fire
The 11-alarm blaze at an industrial complex in Passaic over the weekend left behind a shell of smoldering ruins at a warehouse where casino chairs were once produced, but which of late had been used for storage.
The good news is that firefighters prevented the blaze from reaching Qualco Inc., a supplier of pool and spa chemicals at the 200,000-square-foot site at 225 Passaic Ave.
Peter Ferentinos launched Qualco in 1986, turning it into a mass supplier of chlorine tablets, water clarifiers and other pool chemicals sold everywhere from local stores to major retailers like Walmart.
“It was a family business, for sure,” he said on Sunday, when reached at his home in Smithtown, New York. “The company will survive.”
He declined to comment further but pointed to an online statement thanking first responders for their efforts fighting the fire, posted on the company website. “We greatly appreciate your efforts and the way you mitigated a very difficult situation," the statement read.
Ferentinos has served as chief executive officer of both Qualco and Majestic, based at the adjacent warehouse that was destroyed. Founded in 1998, Majestic stopped manufacturing casino furniture around two years ago and had been storing pallets, plastic and some chlorine when the fire struck.
John Ferentinos was listed as president of Qualco in recent reports by the Dun & Bradstreet business directory, and Thomas Ferentinos as vice president. According to the report, Qualco has 50 employees and generates $25.45 million in sales.
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The company stores about 3 million pounds of potentially hazardous substances on an average day, ranging from industrial disinfectants to bleaching agents, according to a 2020 inventory list sent to state regulators.
It is in an industrial area along the Passaic River, but also near residences. At 3.2 square miles and a population of 70,000, Passaic is one of the most densely populated cities in the country, so “any building in the city is close to residential,” said Mayor Hector Lora.
“Fortunately for us,” Lora said, “the main building for Qualco, the chorine company, was relatively unaffected, and that is the direct result of the amazing effort of the Fire Department.”
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The building that housed Qualco was built in 1943, during World War II, as a defense plant to produce high-pressure hose for the Navy and merchant ships, according to the company website.
It was one of several companies founded by Peter Ferentinos, an entrepreneur with a background in engineering and engineering management.
He helmed Tube Fabrication Industries, which makes small machined auto parts, and Pafco Investments, a private investment financing firm providing funds to small companies, according to profiles online. He also served as CEO of Gold Coast Bank, a Long Island bank chain that was sold to another firm in 2019.
Peter Ferentinos has served on the boards of the Long Island Museum and the New York Institute of Technology, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate of commercial science in 2013.
He has been a supporter of Stony Brook Medical Center. In a Stony Brook University story about his philanthropy, Ferentinos said he was a first-generation immigrant with parents from Greece and Italy. He raised a family working full time and studying for a bachelor’s degree in business at night. He was 30 when he earned his degree from Hofstra University.
Lora said the operators were “responsible business owners” and expects they can reopen as soon as the spring.
“They, of course, will want to explore, through our many departments, economic redevelopment to see what we can explore in terms of their comeback,” he said. “It’s always good to see these buildings become even better.”
Hannan Adely is a diversity reporter covering Arab and Muslim communities for NorthJersey.com, where she focuses on social issues, politics, bias and civil rights. To get unlimited access to the latest news, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Email: adely@northjersey.com
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This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Passaic NJ chemical fire: Qualco chemical plant spared damage
