photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Cielito Lindo, 815 New Hampshire St., is pictured on Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023, after an overnight fire destroyed the downtown Lawrence restaurant.

Lawrence’s Historic Resources Commission last week unanimously approved the demolition of the building at 815 New Hampshire St., which was destroyed by a fire earlier this month, but when it might come down remains an open question.

The approval comes in the aftermath of an overnight fire that started late on Dec. 13 and ultimately destroyed the property, which has been home to downtown Lawrence restaurant Cielito Lindo since 2006. Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical has yet to release a cause for the fire.

The building’s owner, a group called Lawrence 2004 LLC, hadn’t yet filed a request to demolish the building as of last week’s meeting, though. City code official Brian Jimenez said the commission’s action last Thursday preemptively determines that demolition is appropriate in the event that the group does decide to move forward with a formal request.

“… This is quite unique,” Jimenez told the commission. “If you’ve been around Lawrence, you know that fires downtown don’t happen to this extent very often. Sunflower (Outdoor & Bike Shop) was probably the last one approximately 30 years ago or so.”

photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

City code official Brian Jimenez speaks to the Historic Resources Commission during its meeting on Thursday, Dec. 21, 2023.

Such proactive action is necessary in the first place because Jimenez formally declared the building “dangerous,” according to the city’s Property Maintenance Code, in the immediate aftermath of the fire. According to last week’s meeting agenda, that designation applies to any portion of a building or structure that’s been damaged by events such as fires “to such an extent that it is likely to partially or completely collapse or to become detached or dislodged.”

Making that determination was a “slam dunk,” Jimenez said. That’s because Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical personnel still weren’t able to safely enter to complete a full analysis of the building’s structural integrity a week after the fire. Jimenez said code officials were able to make it only a few feet inside the building’s front door to get photos of the damage, with vision blocked by debris on all sides save for a view of the sky to the west.

In fact, Jimenez said they may never complete that assessment due to those safety concerns, which is the principal reason why it was added late to the group’s December meeting agenda rather than waiting until the next Historic Resources Commission meeting on Jan. 18, 2024. If demolition didn’t move forward until then, Jimenez said that could mean the process might not wrap up until early February.

That could be problematic, Jimenez said, given how busy it gets in downtown Lawrence and the building’s location right next to a city-owned parking lot. The west side of that lot nearest to the building has been blocked off in case of a wall collapse.

“As you can imagine, during Christmas time and shopping, we’ve got people mad at us,” Jimenez said. “We’re trying to make them understand there’s a huge liability there, that we can’t have cars or people getting close to that south wall.”

Board member Jeanne Klein, however, was curious about the building’s neighbor on the other side — a historic limestone building constructed in the late 1800s to serve as the warehouse for Barteldes Seed Company — and whether demolishing 815 New Hampshire St. would be possible while also protecting their shared wall.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Firefighters work the scene of a fire early Thursday morning at Cielito Restaurant on New Hampshire Street.

Jimenez said that’d likely be achievable, and that the building next door only suffered water and smoke damage. He said it also could be possible that the building housing Cielito Lindo, which was built in 1976, does not have a shared wall with the historic structure next door at all, but that’s undetermined without the ability to get inside 815 New Hampshire St.

Along with approving the demolition, the Historic Resources Commission also elected to request that extra care be taken to protect the next door wall.

With the approval, Jimenez said the building could come down within the next two to three weeks if demolition does move forward. But Historic Resources Administrator Lynne Braddock Zollner told the group that its approval doesn’t guarantee that demolition takes place, just expedites the process if it does. For now, the demolition has been pre-filed as a planning submittal.

The Historic Resources Commission is also not the last step in the approval process. Downtown design guidelines require that demolition of any building be approved by both that group and the Lawrence City Commission, Braddock Zollner said. The earliest the City Commission could consider granting final approval for demolition would be at its first meeting of the new year next Tuesday.