The Jumbo Fire and How Vacant Buildings Are Driving Seattle's New Dangerous Building Legislation

by Nimra Ahmad

Rainier Valley resident Braeden Van Deynze was walking with his wife one evening in late November on 38th Avenue South when he started to hear shouting. The couple noticed people pointing and taking videos on the high side of the street near the hill — and when they looked over, they saw flames reaching into the sky.

What the two had caught a glimpse of was a massive two-alarm fire on Rainier Avenue South, engulfing a nearly 33,000-square-foot structure that had sat abandoned for eight years. Van Deynze said the building had been "slowly falling apart" for years.

"Frankly, when it caught fire, we weren't very surprised," Van Deynze said. "I don't think anybody was very surprised."

The building that went up in flames was a part of Rainier Mall in the Mt. Baker neighborhood, which had once contained several businesses, but residents referred to it as the old "Jumbo building," as the structure previously housed Jumbo Seafood Restaurant and Lounge. The building has been vacant since 2016.

The circumstances that led to the Jumbo fire are what Mayor Bruce Harrell and City Councilmembers Tammy Morales (District 2) and Bob Kettle (District 7) are trying to solve — the problem of long-vacant and neglected empty buildings that residents say erode the liveability of their neighborhoods.

Last month, the trio proposed emergency legislation that would allow the City to move faster to demolish buildings that the Seattle Fire Department (SFD) considers dangerous.

According to SFD, there have already been at least 30 fires in vacant buildings this year that firefighters have had to address. In 2023, there were 130 vacant building fires, up from 91 in 2022 and 77 in 2021. The proposed law says that three people died in 2023 in vacant building fires.

According to a City memo outlining the proposed legislation, there are more than 100 entries on the SFD's Dangerous Buildings List, including the Rainier Mall building before the fire. It noted that about 40 of the buildings on the list have already had at least one fire response from the City.

Van Deynze said it's a recurring issue on Rainier Avenue South.

"It's not just the Jumbo fire. There was the fire at the Italian bakery I think just a year earlier. We saw that one from our house too," Van Deynze said. "That one was pretty shocking too — another case where the building was abandoned and neglected, and nobody was surprised that it burned down. There was another fire at one of the old auto shops … the [Burger King] burned."

On April 18, Harrell announced that he submitted emergency legislation to permit SFD to order the demolition or remediation of unsafe vacant buildings in the city. This legislation, cosponsored by Morales and Kettle, comes as a response to noncooperative property owners who the City determines have not responded to or complied with notices from the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections (SDCI).

SDCI, which oversees "regulatory and compliance functions related to building and land use activities," does not have enforcement power, which makes it challenging to ensure that property owners resolve code compliance violations, Morales noted.

The ordinance passed the Council's Public Safety Committee on Tuesday, May 14, and now awaits a vote from the full City Council.

Monitoring Vacant Buildings

Located alongside Rainier Avenue, the Rainier Mall building — which once also featured a Safeway — was in the center of community happenings. It was a well-known Asian-American gathering spot outside the Chinatown-International District and was situated near Hawthorne Elementary School, a preschool, Beacon Cinema, and an urgent care facility.

Owned by Kane Properties LLC, the building went under contract in 2019 to Lake Union Partners (also referred to as Rainier & Genessee Property LLC in City documents). Sale of the property closed in mid-March.

The City first classified the building as vacant in August 2021, after the Vacant Building Monitoring program's creation in 2019.

The monitoring program, according to SDCI, works to prevent "neighborhood blight." The city's maintenance standards for vacant buildings include compliance with fire safety code, the removal of debris and litter, and ensuring the area is graffiti-free. Buildings in the program are inspected monthly, according to SDCI code compliance manager Michele Hunter.

"That site posed a particular problem for us for quite some time," Hunter said. "We were having to do the going in and closing and cleaning on behalf of the owners because they were not being responsive. Ultimately, we were very concerned because there was a large hole made in a cement block wall that was very difficult to keep secured. And we believe that's where access for the fire likely occurred. It was definitely being monitored, it was on our radar, and we were doing our best to get the owners to keep it in compliance."

An emergency order to patch up the hole as well as remove debris and trash was issued to both Kane Properties and Rainier & Genessee Property on July 21, 2023. (There were complaints of trash and garbage dumping, as well as encampments as early as 2021, according to SDCI records.)

In October 2023, an inspection found that the building was not secure. It was again found to be insecure in November 2023, and the fire took place Nov. 28.

After the fire, SDCI categorized the building as "demolished" — it had been almost completely destroyed — and removed it from the monitoring program. Rainier Mall had received a demolition permit in October 2022 and was slated for demolition when the fire took place.

Kim Kuhl, manager for Kane Properties, said the notices from the City were not sent to her correct address. Both Kuhl and Patrick Foley, managing partner of Lake Union Partners, said they had battled to keep the building secure.

"People would just find any way to get in," Kuhl said. "And we'd make police reports and nothing would be done. We'd board up the building again, and they'd be right back in."

Foley said SDCI's claims that they were not responsive were untrue. "If you look at our track record and our history, the work that we've been doing since we've been in business for 15 years, we're responsive and we do what we say we're gonna do," Foley said. "So why they're saying that, I don't know."

The Fire and Neighborhood Complaints Over Cleanup

The fire at Rainier Mall erupted on Nov. 28 around 6:30 p.m. More than 80 firefighters were on site, and it took nearly three hours before the fire was deemed under control.

Afterward, SFD put fencing around the remains of the demolished building. But Van Deynze said that to his shock, eventually, the fencing came down entirely.

"I was concerned that people would get in there and start rummaging or get hurt or something," Van Deynze said. "It just seemed strange that they would just leave the lot completely unprotected."

Foley said the fencing had been stolen and was later reinstalled with the new fencing drilled and anchored into the ground with barbed wire on top. Residents said they noticed the new fencing around the week of April 15.

Van Deynze said that although the building was demolished during the fire, its remains had never been cleaned up and were still on site. It was worrisome to Columbia City resident Tracy Flynn as well, especially because of the site's proximity to a school bus stop, Hawthorne Elementary School, and a preschool.

"The school year will be done, and the kids have been going and standing by that bus stop all year. It's really sad. It makes the city look like hell, and it makes it too damn normal for little 13-year-olds to have that just be the way it is," Flynn said. "And then the day care center … Oh my God, you can't even stand them walking by. They're holding hands as they walk by a toxic sludge fire mess."

SDCI's Hunter said that since the building had been removed from the monitoring program — as there was no building to monitor — they were not made aware of the issue until residents started to complain.

"If it's just vacant, and there's nothing happening, then that property owner doesn't really have an obligation to activate the space at all," Morales said. "Their obligations really start to weigh in if it starts to create a public nuisance of some sort."

On Feb. 22, SDCI issued a hazard correction order to Rainier & Genesee Property and Kane Properties addressing the incomplete demolition, the construction debris and trash, and the absence of fencing, and called for their resolutions by March 12.

On March 15, SDCI found that the site was still in disrepair and sent a letter to both property owners stating they would be fined from $150 to $500 a day until the site was secured. Additionally, the department said it would begin the process of suing the property owners if SDCI cannot confirm "substantial progress" toward resolving the violations within two weeks of March 15.

Foley did not provide the start and finish dates for cleanup, but according to SDCI, it was cleaned sometime after March 29.

SDCI said they've referred the case to the City Attorney's Office due to the length of time it took to clean the site and the incomplete demolition permit process. SDCI and the property owners said they're working on a settlement.

"What I do know is that the City of Seattle would not remove trespassers from the building in spite of our many pleas," said Foley in an email. "We boarded up the building several times, fenced it off, and in spite of it all, the building was burned. I am sure the City is still accruing fines against the property based on some technicality, but we intend to contest that. As far as we are concerned, the City has responsibility for not keeping trespassers out of the building. Nonetheless, the site is clean now at our cost."

Foley said that alongside their partner Community Roots Housing, they hope to build new affordable housing on the site sometime in the next three years.

New Legislation and Activating the South End

Morales said when the fire happened at the Rainier Mall site, she started to have meetings with SFD to figure out how to prevent vacant building fires — especially because they've become a recurring issue in the South End.

"The limited options that SDCI has in terms of issuing citations or violations, and just hoping that the property owner does what they're supposed to do … that system clearly doesn't always work the way it's supposed to," Morales said. "Some property owners ignore all of that, and it leads to people breaking in, it leads to buildings being unsecured, people being able to get in, and whether they're staying in there or doing who knows what is the problem."

The ordinance Morales, Kettle, and Harrell have submitted to the Seattle City Council would confront the enforcement issue head on by allowing SFD to demolish or mitigate vacant buildings deemed unsafe under the Seattle Fire Code. If approved by three-quarters of the council, it would become effective immediately.

In addition to the ordinance, Morales said she's working on ideas of how to activate vacant buildings for community use. She admires the downtown Seattle Restored program, which activates empty storefronts with pop-up shops, events, and art galleries. The challenge with temporary uses like that, however, is they require the cooperation of the property owner.

"We have a lot of vacant buildings … Often they contribute to blight," Morales said. "So we're trying to be creative about how to encourage property owners to — if they're not going to do something with the space — allow [the] community to do something with it, even if it's just on a temporary basis."

📸 Featured Image: More than 80 firefighters responded to a two-alarm fire on Nov. 28 at the abandoned Jumbo building near Rainier Avenue South and South Genesee Street. (Photo courtesy of Seattle Fire Department)