Cracking in the facade of the Fifth Avenue Building, in downtown Portland at 1400 S.W. Fifth Ave., caused an evacuation as well as traffic and transit closures on Tuesday.

At about 2 p.m., three hours after the initial emergency call, a Portland Fire & Rescue spokesman, Rich Chatman, confirmed that the problem was not structural in nature and the building was not in imminent danger of collapsing.

A technical team with the fire bureau was first inside. They swept the building and determined it wasn’t in imminent danger of collapse. Structural engineers with the city then began investigating the problem from the inside.

The building is owned by Melvin Mark Cos. The 10-story structure, built in 1951 to house state government services, is a “non-descript state office building,” according to a .

Chatman said the plan was to erect scaffolding to secure loose siding before tenants would be allowed to resume normal operations in the building.

The 130,000-square-foot building houses offices for eBay and Oregon Health & Science University as well as outlets of FedEx, 24 Hour Fitness and KinderCare.

OHSU occupies four floors of the building, and eBay occupies five.

Evacuated OHSU employees said they could hear a crack shortly before being told to leave the building. Several said they assumed the noise came from an ongoing construction project. Some reported hearing a fire; others said it was too quiet to hear.

“It looks like I’ll be working from home for a while,” said Jamie Hinton, an OHSU billing representative who works on the second floor, about one floor below where the buckling appeared.

By 2 p.m., employees were allowed to return to their offices to retrieve possessions, but were told the building would remain closed.

24 Hour Fitness members grumbled outside about missing their lunchtime workouts.

“I guess this means Body Pump is canceled,” one said.

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