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I have a 1980's bi-level home. The center of the lower level contains a bedroom and utility room separated by a central load bearing wall with steel beam. Loadbearing Wall

There is a closet jutting out of this wall that is restricting access to plumbing equipment in the utility room. A Closet in the Utility Room

The closet walls are made with 2x3's instead of the thicker studs in the load bearing wall. They butt up against the center wall, but do not intersect or extend underneath. enter image description here

Is it safe to remove this closet?

uncertainty
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    Closets are usually not load bearing. They just make nice place to hide things. As long as there are no extra supports(beams/posts) under the floor and extra heavy weight above, then they are just plain walls. They can only support a few joists and if the other joists do not need the support, unlikely the ones above the closet do(do check the joist for damage/vertical cracks anyway). – crip659 Sep 21 '23 at 15:40
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    I wouldn't think the closet walls are load bearing for two reasons: the size of the lumber, and that steel i-beam that is in the first picture. – UnhandledExcepSean Sep 21 '23 at 15:47
  • I see what looks like a lapped joist bearing on the wall at the extreme upper right. Is that the case? – isherwood Sep 21 '23 at 16:03
  • The presence of that giant steel beam indicates that the wall immediately beneath it is not load-bearing. If the wall were load-bearing then the beam would be unnecessary. Only the ends of the beam require support underneath. – brhans Sep 21 '23 at 16:53

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