YOUNGSTOWN — The city hall fire escape now needs full replacement at an estimated cost of $400,000 to $500,000 and will take about six months to be completed, the deputy director of public works said.

“I didn’t envision we’d be at this stage,” Charles Shasho, deputy director, said Wednesday at a city council infrastructure and general improvement committee meeting. “The intent was to save it.”

It will also cost about $90,000 for design work for the project, he said.

The city already has sunk $100,000 to $150,000 into cleaning and sandblasting the existing fire escape to remove pigeon waste and rust, Shasho said.

“It had to be done,” he said of the cleaning and sandblasting. “We had to inspect it. We had to get the corrosion off in order to see the condition of the steel. Otherwise, we’d be just guessing. Our hopes were to repair it.”

Since shortly after city officials closed the fire escape on March 9, Shasho has said several times that he expected repair work rather than a replacement.

The initial repair estimate was $250,000, but Shasho has backed away from a cost in the past few months until MS Consultants Inc. of Youngstown could do a structural assessment of the fire escape.

Councilman Jimmy Hughes, D-2nd Ward, said Wednesday he wanted to know what’s been going on for all these months.

“It’s a fair question,” said Shasho, who added the cleaning of primarily pigeon waste took a long time and revealed a lot of structural damage.

The MS assessment of the fire escape was finished recently and while it would be a little less expensive to repair than replace, the decision was to go with the latter option, Shasho said.

“It’s a lot of repairs to seven floors. It’s a lot of time,” he said.

“It seems foolish to repair this. We’re not going anywhere. This city hall is going to be here. Replacing the fire escape is the best bet. It wouldn’t be enclosed anymore. It would be an exposed fire escape,” Shasho said.

The enclosed fire escape not only gave shelter to the pigeons, but caused additional moisture to build up leading to damage, Shasho said.

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

Council will have to authorize the additional expenses.

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 shortly after that discussion that the damage wasn’t extensive enough that the fire escape needs to be replaced. That changed with Wednesday’s announcement.

Also, Shasho said about two weeks ago that the work would be finished by August at the latest. Again, that was changed Wednesday.

Hughes asked Shasho when was the last time the city hall fire escape was inspected.

“I believe this is one of the first inspections we’ve had on this one in … I don’t know when the last time we inspected,” Shasho said.

The fire escape likely was 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 to 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.

Other committee meetings and other city bodies have met elsewhere in city hall, mostly in conference rooms on the second or fifth floors. Council’s infrastructure and general improvements committee met Wednesday on the second floor.

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