YOUNGSTOWN — Close to two years after Youngstown City Hall’s fire escape was closed because of structural issues, it finally passed a fire department inspection and city council will resume meeting at the building.

“We got everything done the fire inspector wanted,” said Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works. “Our building is in compliance with the fire inspector. We have a good fire escape. I hope we never have to use it.”

City council, which last met in its chambers on the sixth floor on March 1, 2023, will return after an absence of more than 22 months when it meets Jan. 15.

“We plan to be back in chambers for our next meeting,” council President Tom Hetrick said.

The fire escape project on the seven-story building has been delayed numerous times. Work on the structure was finished in September, but it wasn’t until the completion of interior work to the top floor that the fire escape passed a fire department inspection this week as well as one from the Mahoning County Building Department.

“We’re all good,” Shasho said. “Everything is done. I would have liked to have done the project differently with designs first and then construct the fire escape. But in an emergency, we wanted to get it done fast. It took a bit longer when you try to get it done quicker. You live and learn.”

The main issues since the fire escape was finished in September were work to install a railing, rebuild stairs and fix ceiling tiles inside the seventh floor, Shasho said.

Murphy Contracting Co. of Youngstown, the fire escape project’s contractor, recently did the improvement work.

While city council committee meetings and other city boards and committees continued to meet at city hall, city council meetings were held off-site at either the Covelli Centre or the Mahoning County commissioners’ meeting room since the fire escape was closed March 9, 2023, by fire Chief Barry Finley.

City council met elsewhere because of safety concerns. The issue is if there is a fire, it would be a problem to get people – particularly the public – safely off of the sixth floor, where council meets, because the only egress would be the stairs, which would also be used by firefighters to gain access to the floor.

When fire alarms are activated, the building’s elevators are automatically shut down.

The fire escape has been functional since September, with Shasho saying city council could have been meeting in its chambers for the past few months. City council, though, opted not to return until the fire escape passed inspections.

Hetrick said council will return Wednesday.

The project was plagued by numerous problems.

Even after the fire escape was installed in September, it couldn’t pass a city fire inspection, with Murphy needing to install interior illuminated exit signs inside the building and exterior lighting on the structure in November. The problems on the seventh floor delayed the fire escape passing inspection until this week.

Council voted April 19, 2023, to spend up to $250,000 for repair work and designs to the fire escape though Shasho said that amount was never going to be the final cost. At that time, work was to be finished in a few months.

Council voted to increase the maximum cost to $1.1 million on July 31, 2023, after it was decided to replace rather than repair the fire escape.

City council agreed Dec. 20, 2023, to increase the project’s cost from $1.1 million to $1.4 million.

The issues causing delays included needed additions to the project, the city having to resolve concerns from the county building department about the safety of those inside city hall between the time the old fire escape was dismantled and when a new one was installed, and concerns about the foundation.

There was initial debate between replacement and repairing the fire escape after a Feb. 3, 2023, inspection report determined the fire escape was inoperable. Finley decided March 9, 2023, that the fire escape would be shut down until work on it could be finished.

After Murphy Contracting did repair work, including cleaning and sandblasting the fire escape of bird droppings and rust, it was decided in July 2023 that it would be better to replace rather than repair the aging fire escape, even though it would be more expensive.

That not only increased the cost, but it delayed the completion date to January 2024. But that was delayed after more problems were discovered.

Work didn’t even start until January 2024 – four months behind schedule – and moved the completion date to late February or early March 2024.

Additional issues – including the discovery that a measurement of the structure determined the fire escape and the connecting emergency doors on each floor didn’t match and then the need to resolve that – delayed the completion date to mid-May. Further delays moved the completion to mid-June – and even more issues pushed it to September. The lighting work further delayed it as did the issues on the seventh floor.