The brown butcher paper is already up and the computer printout signs are in the window: WE HAVE LOST OUR LEASE. Simply Frames and Miner Gallery, on 15th Ave E between Palermo and the Bagel Deli among others, is the latest Capitol Hill business to be shown the door by a landlord as rents in the area rise and more aggressive, more immediately profitable tenants are attracted by the Hill’s improving business climate.

Before you start painting broad strokes of dark and light, good and evil, tenant and landlord, know that the property owner in this situation is affordable housing developer Capitol Hill Housing. CHS spoke briefly with Mike Staczek, current resident manager at the mixed-use building Simply Frames has called home since opening in 1997. We asked him what had happened to cause Simply Frames to have to leave the retail space. Staczek said, “The economy,” but said he couldn’t say more right now.

Staczek would not say whether a new tenant is already lined up to replace the frame store and gallery but did say the space is currently “in transition.”

UPDATE 6/17/2010 2:15 PM:
We spoke with Capitol Hill Housing’s executive director Chris Persons about the situation. Persons said that this is not a case of a rising rents forcing a business out.

“We have not increased rents,” Persons said. “We’re not raising our rents to make anybody leave any of our units. We work really hard to keep locally owned, smaller businesses on Capitol Hill.”

Persons declined to comment on what has lead Simply Frames to close shop in the middle of its five-year lease for the space.

Persons did say that Capitol Hill Housing does adjust rents annually based on economic factors.

“We are not raising our rents in any kind of aggressive manner,” Persons said. Update **

CHS has not yet spoken with owner Myron Miner who has operated the frame store on 15th since February, 1997 and opened the gallery there in 2002, according to his Web site. Signs posted in the Simply Frames windows indicated that some of his business would continue at Edgar on Broadway.

The intersection of 15th and Harrison recently saw another long-time tenant decide to move out. After 37 years in the space, Tilden, the “difficult for children” store, shut its doors in March. That space remains unoccupied and unimproved but CHS reported that a restaurant is signed for the location. We’ve also reported on other recent moves, closures and drama forced by increases in rents including Grey Gallery’s decision to leave its current Pike/Pine home, the Roanoke’s struggles to remain on 10th Ave E, and Harem getting priced out of its Broadway home.