When the neon sign on the old Vise building lit up earlier this week for the first time in more than 50 years, it was as if the sun rose on a new day in downtown Meridian.

The clinic, on the corner of Fourth Street and 22nd Avenue, was the first to have air conditioning in Mississippi, and is now prime office space for a downtown on the verge of revitalization.

Local developer Gil Carmichael is working to remodel the building and restore it to the way it looked in 1947, when Dr. Guy Thompson Vise Sr. had a clinic on the fourth floor.

“This is one of the major landmarks in downtown Meridian, and anyone over the age of 60 will remember the neon sign,” Carmichael said. “We put it back as authentic as we can.”

The building currently houses the offices of architect Will Ballou and Will Roland, whose company Gracenote did some acoustical and audio visual work for the MSU Riley Center.

Each floor still has four bathrooms, because of the days when there were separate ones for blacks and whites.

Dr. Vise died on June 2, and Carmichael said Vise was well before his time in determining that smoking causes lung cancer and heart disease. He also, according to his obituary in The Meridian Star, described “secondary smoke disorders” decades before this concept was to surface.

In 1938, Dr. Vise opened a medical office in the Threefoot Building in downtown Meridian. He then renovated the Renfroe Building on the corner of Fourth Street and 22nd Avenue into the Vise Clinic Building.

Carmichael said a clothing store is set to open in August on the bottom floor of the Vise building. Then entrance will be on the 22nd Avenue side, next to the Liberty Shop.

Over the years, the building has housed a recording studio, the Compton law firm, a dentist’s office and so on. Each of the building’s four floors has about 2,500 square-feet of office space available.

“I’m trying to find tenants that will use the entrances and doors and office layout without too much altering,” Carmichael said.

Renovations of the building’s second and third floor are complete and work has begun on the fourth floor.