A busy San Francisco intersection has been closed for days following a massive blaze that burned down a construction site at the intersection of Oak Street and Octavia Boulevard.
Now, city agencies have ordered the owners of the charred building to “secure the property” and open up the surrounding intersection to traffic within 48 hours, according to Department of Building Inspection documents.
This means the latest the intersection at Oak and Octavia is supposed to open is within 48 hours of the order being issued, or by Thursday.
The building, located at 300 Octavia St., is owned by Greenview Planning and Design LLC, a Walnut Creek-based contractor that bought the property in July 2020. The owner did not respond to requests for comment by publication time.
Building inspection officials said they issued a first notice of violation on the property on Aug. 1, requiring the owners to hire an engineer to check the building structure. They instructed property management to “secure [the] building until unsafe condition has been rectified.”
The officials then issued a second notice Tuesday morning, requiring owners to speed up the timeline and fix the property within 48 hours. The emergency order was issued after officials said Greenview Planning and Design had not completed its structural inspection “at a satisfactory pace,” leaving the intersection closed off to traffic for days after its first violation notice.
“Once the property is secured, the adjacent streets will be reopened to traffic,” said a department spokesperson.
City officials said the emergency notice listed numerous requirements, including obtaining a building permit, removing scaffolding and wood portions of the building, and removing any debris.
“The building constitutes an imminent and substantial hazard to the life, health and/or safety of the public due to substantial structural damage as a result of a structure fire,” the emergency order states.
The emergency notice also required “constructing barricades” to prevent people from entering the fire-damaged site, which poses a risk both to nearby residents’ private property and to ensure nobody is injured on the premises.
Transit officials have been spotted directing traffic at the intersection, but a San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency spokesperson said the building’s contractor—Greenview Planning and Design—is ultimately responsible for opening the road back up to traffic. Vehicles exiting northbound Highway 101 have experienced severe traffic delays in the week after the fire and subsequent intersection closure.
Eight people were displaced by the four-alarm fire that damaged five buildings nearby. More than a hundred San Francisco firefighters responded to reports of the fire, which began shortly after 6 a.m. Aug. 1. A cause has not yet been provided for the fire.