YOUNGSTOWN — Work to the city hall fire escape that has limited public access to the building should be done in a month to 45 days, but the cost of the project is unknown, the deputy director of public works said.

Murphy Contracting Co. and Quality Metal Works, both of Youngstown, did emergency repair work to the enclosed fire escape at the seven-story city hall since March 20 — 11 days after city officials closed the fire escape.

MS Consultants Inc. of Youngstown is doing a structural assessment of the fire escape to determine what other repairs are needed at the building.

That assessment should be finished in the next week or so with MS providing recommendations on how to proceed, said Charles Shasho, deputy director of public works.

“We found some stuff but don’t have a final assessment,” he said. “There’s missing metal, steps coming apart and areas of the fire escape pulling apart from the framing. It was hidden by debris” and a large amount of bird waste.

At Shasho’s recommendation, city council agreed April 19 to spend up to $250,000 for the work and the structural assessment.

Until MS’s recommendation is done, he said he won’t know what the cost will be.

“They have found more issues than I expected,” Shasho said. “I don’t know exactly how that will play out yet.”

In April, Shasho said he anticipated the work would be done by early July.

With a 30- to-45-day timeline, it will be a little later than that. Shasho is calling the 45 days “a worst-case scenario.”

There was initial discussion, after a Feb. 3 inspection report determined the fire escape was inoperable, about a possible replacement rather than a repair. But Shasho said the damage wasn’t extensive enough that the fire escape needs to be replaced.

After the work is done and inspected, the fire escape will have follow-up inspections every five years, he said.

The fire escape was likely last inspected about 15 years ago.

The Vindicator reported in March that fire Chief Barry Finley wrote in an email to April Edwards, the chief fire inspector, that he learned there were “no inspections or fire drills” in “city hall since I took over as chief” in February 2018.

City officials announced March 9 that the fire escape would be shut down until work on it could be finished.

Because it’s the only other way to get in and out of the building besides the stairwell in case of a fire, city council moved all of its meetings from the sixth floor, where it regularly holds them. The building’s two elevators automatically shut down when there’s a fire.

All but one council meeting since then was moved to the Covelli Centre community room with finance committee meetings held before them.

Last Wednesday’s finance and council meetings were held in the commissioners’ meeting room in the basement of the Mahoning County Common Pleas Courthouse because of an REO Speedwagon concert at the Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre, which uses the center’s parking lot. Both facilities are owned by the city.

Council’s summer schedule includes meetings tentatively planned for July 31 and Aug. 23.

The Aug. 23 meeting could see council return to its chambers in city hall for the first time since March 1.

Other committee meetings and other city bodies have met elsewhere in city hall, mostly in conference rooms on the second or fifth floors.

The board of control has continued to meet on the sixth floor in the council caucus room.