L.M. and Louis Threefoot had high hopes when they first erected the now iconic Threefoot building downtown — what they didn’t have was good timing.

Construction began on the Threefoot building, which originally cost $750,000 to build, in mid-1929 — just before the stock market crash that sent this country into the great depression.

A newspaper article from April of that year reported that, along with the Threefoot brothers, “some score or more of the leading citizens of Meridian and Mississippi,” invested in the building, which was said to have “space for upwards of two-hundred and fifty offices.”

But apparently 250 offices was more than depression-era Meridian could accommodate.

According to the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute on Southern Jewish Life, a non-profit organization that documents Southern Jewish history, “the costly venture left the (Threefoot) family business on shaky ground and eventually led to its closure.”

But the building has outlasted the business, and stands as what is probably Meridian’s most recognizable landmark today.

Erected on the former site of the Threefoot Bros. and Co. hardware store, the building was home to a number of offices for several decades (many Meridianites still recall the terror they felt while awaiting fillings in a dentist’s office there) but has now been abandoned for many years.

If all goes as planned, the building will soon be put to use once again — this time as a Courtyard by Marriott hotel. HRI Properties, a New Orleans developer that specializes in historic renovations, is in the process of ironing out the finer details in the renovation of the building into a hotel.

HRI gave city officials, local media, and a potential project lender a tour of the building Thursday.

Right now, it doesn’t look so pretty. While the exterior of the building is noticeably worse for the wear, the interior is in a much more obvious state of deterioration.

The floors are scuffed and broken in some places, covered with filthy unraveling carpet in others, and some parts of the building are naked. The walls in many cases are covered with either severely chipped paint or old, cheap-looking sheet rock. Random parts of the building are littered with various types of debris and old, beat-up furniture.

An underground stream flows through the basement boiler room. It has been rigged to flow through a small pipe into a bucket, but it still causes flooding — spray paint marks past flood lines, which in one case reaches shoulder height. Some of the boilers and other pieces of equipment in the room are so old they look like they may be made completely out of rust and corrosion.

The elevators still work, but they are rather scary to ride upon. They have no interior doors, the cab walls with their grungy old paneling look extremely ramshackle, and the elevators themselves are old-timey enough that their use requires the assistance of an elevator operator.

On the 14th floor, a room that will become a fancy suite is currently stripped of all adornment, covered with broken masonry, and strung together with cables.

But the potential to create a beautiful hotel is nonetheless evident in the room — all one has to do is look out the window — gorgeous views of downtown Meridian and the tree-covered hills that surround it can be seen from what will soon be a terrace connected to a two-room suite.

Indeed, HRI Vice President Josh Collen said the Threefoot building is actually in pretty good shape compared to other building’s they’ve renovated. “You should have seen the King Edward before we started working on it,” Collen said of the historic but rotted Jackson sky-scraper that is now being transformed into a Hilton Garden Inn hotel scheduled to open later this year.

In the basement, Collen said, the underground stream will be diverted using pumps and drains. On the ground floor, the art-deco style hallway that contains the elevators will undergo a historically precise renovation. Fortunately, new elevator cabs will be installed. But the elevators’ decorated brass exterior doors and other adornments in the hallway will be refurbished.

The rest of the ground floor is not considered historically important, so HRI will be able to knock down walls to make room for the standard Courtyard by Marriott lobby amenities, including small meeting space, a business center, a bar, and a small store.

The remaining floors will contain guest rooms that meet both historic preservation standards and Courtyard by Marriott franchise standards. The second through tenth floors will each contain 12 rooms. The 11th through 13th floors will each have five. The 14th floor will house three regular guest rooms and a two-room suite with terraces.

The top two floors will be used for storage and other similar functions.

HRI has not yet begun the building renovations. The work that is underway on the exterior of the building now is being done by the building’s current owner, the City of Meridian. Workers are removing loose masonry that poses a safety threat to drivers and pedestrians on the street below.

Right now, HRI is still in the process of completing the financing and ironing out other details. They are still looking, as of last week, for a $5 million dollar first mortgage lender (the main purpose of Thursday’s tour was to show the building to a potential lender, NBC bank in New Orleans).

HRI is also still working out a design compromise between Marriott and historic preservation authorities and working out a deal with Trustmark bank for the removal of their downtown bank branch, which blocks what will be the main entrance to the hotel.

Though the building is currently in a shambles and actual renovation work hasn’t begun yet, the deal-making that must be done to make the project happen appears to be coming to a close, and signs point strongly to the Threefoot building again becoming something that the brothers who built it could be proud of.