Cole Street opened in front of building where roof collapsed | UPDATE

At the city's direction, fencing was installed around the Cole Street building Friday and bracing was installed to prevent an exterior wall from falling toward the street. With those precautions in place, Cole Street was opened Friday afternoon to traffic.

July 11, 2015 12:55 am

UPDATE

At the city’s direction, fencing was installed around the Cole Street building Friday and bracing was installed to prevent an exterior wall from falling toward the street. With those precautions in place, Cole Street was opened Friday afternoon to traffic.

The city of Enumclaw has taken steps to abate the unoccupied the building on the corner of Cole St. and Stevenson Ave.

The building’s roof collapsed around 9:30 p.m. on July 6.

The city has notified the owner of the building that they must start taking steps to brace the walls of the building by tomorrow (Friday).

“We provided (the owner) with the structural engineer’s recommendations to bracing the wall along Cole St,” City Administrator Chris Searcy said in a phone interview today. “The expectation is that they will do that, and if they don’t, then we will proceed ahead to do that ourselves.”

The reason the building collapsed is still unknown, as it is unsafe to enter the building to inspect it.