A vacant and boarded up storage building on the northeast corner of 700 S. 400 W. in the Granary District was demolished overnight after a three-alarm fire ignited and destroyed the building on Sunday.
The building is part of a larger assemblage owned by an entity controlled by the developer Gardner Batt.
That company obtained permission from Salt Lake City to board up the building in November.
One resident of the Hendry Apartments immediately to the east of the destroyed building told Building Salt Lake she witnessed a shirtless man lighting a bonfire outside the building just minutes before it erupted in flames.
A portion of the exterior wall of the Hendry Apartments was lightly damaged by fire and the entire building was evacuated for several hours while firefighters doused the flames.
Fire officials said all residents were allowed back in around 11 pm Sunday night, and that damage was isolated to the building’s exterior.
Another witness said several cars that were parked outside the destroyed building were totaled as the walls came down and crashed onto the nearby vehicles.
There are no active plans for the assemblage, and Gardner Batt didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 
This is the second fire to destroy a future development site at this intersection alone. In March 2023, a barrel-roofed building that is set to be developed into a mixed-use building was also destroyed by fire. That building sits immediately southwest across the intersection from the building destroyed in Sunday’s fire.
The Granary District is undergoing a rapid transformation, with recent activity led by Blaser Ventures on the neighborhood’s south end, from Granary Live on 500 West to Kilby Court.
Blaser recently completed the Bissinger Hides building, which is in lease-up. An Uchi sushi restaurant is set to open on the building’s ground floor in the coming months.
That will sit immediately next to the Pickle Building, which was rebuilt after it was demolished last year and recently welcomed the restaurant Culinary Dropout.
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