The Meridian City Council is looking to reopen 25th Avenue after hearing from a business owner impacted by the street closure.

A block of the avenue between 5th and 6th Streets has been closed since September as a safety precaution as the city works with property owners to repair or demolish the historic E.F. Young Hotel, which has partially collapsed.

In a work session Tuesday, the council heard from James Copeland, who owns The Ruins, an event venue next to the hotel. Copeland, who has been working with the city to bring his building into code compliance, said he hasn’t been able to move forward due to the road closure.

“I just don’t think I’ve been treated fairly compared to how other businesses have been treated,” he said.

Although Copeland originally obtained an occupancy permit before opening The Ruins in 2019, Community Development Director Craig Hitt said the building was not brought up to code, and the signature on the permit appears to be a forgery. The city’s inspector denied signing off on the building and the signature does not match, he said.

Copeland said he was surprised to learn his permit was forged and was willing to bring his business up to code. Before doing so, however, he said the street needs  to be reopened.

“That’s not a problem,” he said. “I have the finances, but we’re not at that point.”

Councilman George Thomas said the city needed to move forward to reopen the street to free up Copeland to work on his building.

“We need to do what we need to do to get him open,” he said.

Thomas said the way he saw it, the city needs to addess three issues. The first, he said, was to refer the matter of the forged permit to the police department.

“The person who supposedly signed this says they did not sign it, which means someone fraudulently signed it,” he said. “This needs to be turned over to the police department.”

The second, he said, was for the council to vote to condemn the Young Hotel and either have the owners tear it down or have the city do it and charge the cost to the property owners.

“If it needs to be condemned, let’s condemn it. Once it’s condemned, they have a choice of either rebuilding or tearing it down,” he said. “Or the city will do it, and we’ll charge whatever it costs.”

Finally, Thomas said, Copeland needs to be allowed to get an engineer to inspect his building and tell him what, if anything, is needed to make it safe.

“He needs to be allowed to get whatever he needs to get a valid inspection, whatever that involves,” he said. “A valid inspection that says his building is rated for occupancy. To me, those are the three things we need to do.”

“We inherited the problem,” Thomas emphasized. “We’ve got to fix it.”

The council asked Hitt to invite the Young Hotel owners to the council’s next work session on May 24 to discuss moving forward with making the building safe. After meeting with the owners, he said, the council would intend to take action at its first meeting in June.