City inspection finds brick façade ‘stable’ at shuttered 15th Ave E restaurant building

City officials say the brick facade of the building at the center of the sudden closure of three 15th Ave E businesses has been determined to be safe.

“Our building inspection team evaluated the brick façade on E. Harrison Ave (sic). and found the condition appears stable and does not indicate an ongoing safety hazard to the public,” a spokesperson for the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections tells CHS. “A Hazard Correction Order will not be issued.”

CHS reported on the review and concerns about crumbling brick on the building’s south side as Rione XIII, Rubinstein Bagels, and Bar Vacilando announced their sudden closures last week citing lease and unspecified building issues.

In August, crumbling bricks were reported along the 96-year-old structure’s E Harrison-side masonry facade.

The takeaways of the city’s inspection — sent to CHS just as a 4.2 earthquake rumbled through the Olympic Peninsula and Western Washington Tuesday afternoon — unfortunately only add to the uncertainty of what will come next for the building.

Longtime property owners the Kumata family have not responded to inquiries about the situation but we now know that city code enforcement did not compel the operators to vacate.

As the city is not intervening with a Hazard Correction Order which legally requires repair timelines and licensed engineering reports under threat of civil penalties, the closures point to a few possible scenarios behind the scenes. The businesses may have decided the deteriorating conditions were no longer workable — or the property’s ownership chose not to renew their leases while facing the prospect of funding major building repairs.

For now, this end of the block sits quiet and fully dark. Whether the building’s spaces can be rehabilitated for new commercial tenants, require extensive structural investment before doors can reopen, or eventually head toward redevelopment on a rapidly evolving 15th Ave E are the next unanswered questions for the neighborhood. And, yes, “What will become of the Empress Tree?” is another.