Save this historic building, a Boisean pleads. We want to, city says. What just happened

The city of Boise denied an appeal from the owner of the historic Union Block building downtown contesting the city’s decision to close it over structural safety concerns.

The owner, Ken Howell, did not show up to a public hearing Tuesday night to testify on his behalf. Boise City Council members voted unanimously to deny the appeal following a presentation by Jason Blais, the city’s chief building official, that detailed numerous issues stemming from a years-long project to construct a new basement floor that’s been plagued by delays.

Blais showed photos of several large cracks, temporary shoring posts bowing under significant weight, and areas where the facade has separated from the exterior of the building.

“These columns are very old,” he said, referring to the stone columns supporting the base of the building. “And they’re falling apart, they’re cracking, and they’re being held together by strapping right now. These are very big structural issues.”

The two-story, Richardsonian Romanesque-style building was designed by Boise architect John E. Tourellotte in 1899 and completed three years later, according to the Idaho Architecture Project. It’s made of brick and sandstone sourced from the local Tablerock quarry, which was also used in the construction of the Capitol and several other downtown Boise buildings. It has a 125-foot-long frontage with five arches and many windows.

In the late 1900s, the Union Block was in danger of being demolished, but the city awarded Howell a contract to restore it.

The city condemned the building on Nov. 9 after officials inspected the space and determined it wasn’t safe to occupy. The city cited several subsections of the city code for dangerous buildings, including when any portion of a structure is “likely to fail, or become dislodged or to collapse.”

At the request of the city, the Ada County Highway District also closed the sidewalk, on-street parking and the far-right lane of traffic next to the building on Idaho Street between Capitol Boulevard and Eighth Street.

The building has been under construction for years, with temporary shoring holding it up, after Howell won approval from the city in 2018 to carve out an additional floor below ground to be leased to businesses or other tenants. The basement renovation was only supposed to take about a year.

Restaurant tenants forced to find new homes

Since the closure, two restaurants that occupied the building have been forced to find new homes. Moon’s Kitchen, a popular Boise breakfast spot, moved into a second-floor space in the Zions Bank building. Mai Thai, an Asian-fusion restaurant, is now operating out of a kitchen in Meridian, limited to takeout and delivery service.

Blais said there’s been trade work done with no permits, such as a new bearing basement wall that wasn’t in the plans and had received no inspection of its footing.

He noted that while Howell has made progress since the city ordered the building to be vacated in November, including submitting plans to address some of the structural concerns and repairing one major crack, “there’s still a lot more to be done.”

“Five years later, we’re concerned about those temporary measures and the long-term effects they could have on the stability of the building,” Tim Keane, director of the city’s Planning and Development Services department, previously told the Idaho Statesman.

Notices posted months ago to the building’s doors at 730 W. Idaho St. still say “Do not enter. Unsafe to occupy.”

Blais said that after a kitchen fire ignited at Mai Thai on Nov. 7, unrelated to the closure, one of the fire inspectors noticed a screw in the flow switch in the fire riser room of the building that caused the system to malfunction. When the fire broke out, the switch failed to send a signal that would have notified the fire department.

“Thankfully, somebody saw the fire when it was happening — shooting through the roof of the shaft, and called the fire department and they came and took care of the fire,” he said.

Sandy Blodgett, 84, of Boise, was the only member of the public to speak at the hearing Tuesday. He urged the city to preserve the more than 120-year-old building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.

“The reason we took this action was to save this building, to be very clear,” Keane said in response. “We believe strongly that the action we took to issue this notice, have the building vacated and demand its repair, will hasten the preservation of this building.”

Owner says building unlikely to collapse

Howell told the Statesman that he informed the city’s attorney in advance that neither he nor a representative would be there.

“We didn’t feel that there was any productive outcome that would come from a presentation-style hearing to hear our case,” Howell said Wednesday by phone.

Howell previously told the Statesman he was blindsided by the city’s move to shutter the building.

He said the temporary shoring posts holding the building up are designed to support massive loads, and are equivalent to, if not more supportive than, the original wood posts that held the building up for over a century.

“The contention is basically that today or tomorrow the whole thing’s going to collapse, and that’s just not the case,” Howell said by phone.

Lindsay Moser, communications director for the city’s Planning and Development Services Department, told the Statesman that Howell is suing the city over the closure. Moser declined to comment, citing pending litigation.

Howell said Wednesday that he’s in the process of completing the list of repairs the department has outlined and expects the work to be finished sometime in March. He disagrees with the city’s assertion that the Union Block is a “dangerous building.”

“We when we complete (the repairs) we will presumably no longer have a dangerous building,” he said.

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