Shop damaged, but open in spite of crash
Owner still plans to make Mother’s Day deliveries
Baseline Flowers, the last remaining flower shop from the era of Japanese-American flower gardens that were established in the 1950s along Baseline Road near South Mountain, is still in business for Mother’s Day after two cars crashed into their building last week.
“It looks like a hurricane went through it, honestly,” Kathy Nakagawa, owner of Baseline Flowers, told The Arizona Republic. “Both cars came up on the curb. One car actually hit the side of our building and came into the building and the other car must have spun and just run alongside of the building ... it peeled off a lot of the panels off of the north side of the building.”
The crash occurred at night around 8:45 p.m. on Thursday, April 21, according to Nakagawa who said she arrived at the scene by 9:30 p.m. to view the damages to the business.
According to the Phoenix Police Department, preliminary information indicates speed was a factor for both cars involved in the accident. One woman was taken to a hospital for non-lifethreatening injuries.
Baseline Flowers posted photos on Instagram showing the structural damage to the building. Both cars involved in the collision appear to have been flipped on their sides or upside down. Part of the metal structure of the building also was damaged and various pieces of inventory including baskets, boxes and vases were wrecked on the ground.
After the debris was cleared up, the holes in the building were boarded and a metal fence blocks the area of the collision.
“We plan to be open and making de
liveries for Mother’s Day because that’s such a big holiday and we really enjoy and appreciate all of our customers and we want to be sure we can be open for that,” she said.
Baseline Flowers was established in 1952 along a 1-mile stretch on Baseline Road, near 32nd and 40th streets. The original flower farms were a large tourist attraction during the springtime for Arizona residents.
“There was seven Japanese families that grew flowers and vegetables along Baseline Road on both the north and south side,” said Nakagawa. “Over the years, people sold off the land. My dad’s family sold off the land but my dad parceled out a part where the flower shop is and he kept the flower shop open.”
“So we’re the last remaining flower shop from that era,” Nakagawa added. After her father died last year, she took over the family business.
“We kind of have two sides to our building. One is the retail side where the customers come in and we have a small cooler where we keep some bouquets and arrangements for the public to purchase,” said Nakagawa. “The side that they hit was our work side, where we have a huge walk-in cooler where we keep all of our inventory, like vases. All of that was destroyed.”
Nakagawa said that the business’ walk-in coolers where they store a lot of their flowers, were also “severely dented” in the crash. The cooler is functional but is not working properly.
“We have enough storage for the inventory we did have in place, so we didn’t lose very much due to the accident,” said Nakagawa. “We lost a few buckets of things but we’re at the point where we’ll start bringing in all of the inventory for Mother’s Day, so if we don’t get the cooler working, then we have to make other plans.”
In addition to the inventory that was wrecked, Nakagawa says a recently-commissioned mural by local Phoenix artist Ariana Enriquez Verduzco on the west side of the building was “destroyed.”
“We just had a mural commissioned. We worked with an artist to put a mural up at the west side of the building and it destroyed one part of that mural,” said Nakagawa. “The mural had just been done in March and everybody loved the mural, so that was really heartbreaking.”
Baseline Flowers will be open and ready for business on Mother’s Day. Online orders on the company’s website are active and walk-in customers are welcome, according to Nakagawa.
“We were able to get a wonderful contractor in to clear a lot of the debris so we can be working and open for Mother’s Day completely. So, we’re excited about that, then we can deal with repairs and what’s going to be needed for the renovation after Mother’s Day,” she said.