The Verhine Building at 1015 Adams St. could soon be going down.

Vicksburg’s Board of Architectural Review Board approved a certificate of appropriateness for demolition filed by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen clearing the way for the building’s demolition. The board in June declared the building, which is falling in, a menace to the public health and safety and filed the certificate.

The only question now is whether the city or the county will raze the county-owned building.

“I still think that building is a safety hazard, and I commend the Architectural Review Board for approving its demolition,” Mayor George Flaggs Jr. said. “It’s now up to the Board of Supervisors.”

Board of supervisors President Richard George said the county has not received a notice of the Architectural Review Board’s decision.

“It puts us back to square one,” he said, “we’re still going to have to take it down.”

Under the city’s regulations, the city would be responsible for removing the building, since the request was filed in the board’s name.

However, zoning official Paula Wright said in the past property owners have asked the city to let them take down a condemned building they own at their expense, even though the city applied for the demolition.

The Verhine Building has been in disrepair since the county bought it in 2002, and city and county officials have debated its future since the Warren County Board of Supervisors first sought to raze the building in 2004.

At that time, the supervisors wanted to demolish it and the adjacent old Justice Court Building.

The Board of Architectural Review denied the county’s request because they are in the city’s Grove Street-Jackson Street National Register Historic District and protected under the city’s historic preservation ordinance.

The members urged the county to renovate the buildings.