Plans for a $11.5 million renovation of the historic Patrick Henry Hotel have emerged, but the dilapidated downtown Roanoke icon could still be closed Monday by fire officials for failing to meet safety guidelines.

The hotel's New York-based owners, Affirmative Equities, filed an application Thursday with city officials to start a long-delayed conversion that would turn the hotel's guest rooms into senior living apartments. The company didn't return phone calls for comment Friday.

Since May, the aging hotel has been operating under a temporary occupancy permit. That permit is set to expire Sunday. "They've got until September 30 to comply," said Tiffany Bradbury, a spokeswoman for Roanoke Fire-EMS.

Fire marshal Daniel Rakes has said in previous interviews that fire officials are unlikely to grant another extension to the occupancy certificate without definitive plans to update now-outdated sprinkler systems. He could not be reached Friday afternoon.

"I think we're just getting to the end of our rope," Rakes said in May. The Patrick Henry has been out of compliance with city fire code for about a decade.

Fire officials closed the hotel's upper floors in April, and several ground-floor tenants -- some who had run their business out of the Patrick Henry for decades -- have already moved out or closed shop.

The hotel's owners have said in previous interviews that they plan to update the sprinkler system during a proposed renovation of the hotel. Thus, the application to begin renovations could set the stage for new life at the 1920s structure.

The renovation application, which was filed with the Roanoke building department, is subject to review by Roanoke city officials and must be approved for construction to start, said Jeff Shawver, Roanoke's acting building commissioner.

Despite the owners' wishes to keep the building's first two floors open during renovations, the city's former building commissioner, Karl Cooler, said he would not allow it, citing the fire-code violations.

Avis Construction Company of Roanoke is listed on the building permit as the project's contractor.

The company's president and chief executive officer, Barry Baird, said on Friday afternoon that the owners plan to convert the hotel into about 104 units of senior living. The upper floors will be renovated, while the first two floors will receive "cosmetic-type changes," he said.

During the construction, a full set of sprinklers will be installed, he said.

When asked about delays, Baird described the renovation as being in a "holding pattern" waiting for the owners to finalize the project's financing.

"From what I understand it's close to being done," he said of the financing package. In previous interviews, the hotel's owners priced the total conversion at $28.8 million. In May, Affirmative Equities President Andrew Jubelt told The Roanoke Times that they were seeking approval for the remaining $5.5 million to complete the financing.

For years, the revamping of the Patrick Henry Hotel has unravelled in fits and false starts. In 2001, the owners decided the building's future should include senior housing. By 2004, Jubelt had told The Roanoke Times that renovations would begin as early as that summer, but it was not until two years later that the company filed a building permit application with the city.

Earlier this year, that application for $9.5 million in renovations and submitted by architect Ray Craighead, lapsed.

All the while, a rocky financial history continued to rattle the project. In early 2007, the IRS placed a lien on the property for $170,900 in unpaid federal taxes. Various lenders have moved to foreclose on the property -- at least four times in the past nine years.

At least one city official has questioned whether these promises to renovate were in reality a stalling technique to keep the building open.

While the owners have since paid off the tax lien -- court records show its release in July -- uncertainty about its future was unsettling to some of the hotel's tenants and clients. The Kiwanis Club of Roanoke left in August after at least 60 years of holding their meetings in the hotel's Grand Ballroom.

Dot's Salon of Beauty also closed its doors in mid-September after 31 years at the hotel's ground-floor location on Bullitt Avenue.

Earlier this month, Dora's of Roanoke, an interior design firm that had been located at the hotel for 43 years, notified management that it would not renew. David Belcher, who co-owns Dora's with Lew Snead, said they're relocating to a location on Grandin Road but will miss being in the Patrick Henry. By Friday afternoon, their shop floor was bare, revealing strips of paisley wallpaper and dust.

"It could have been a little jewel," Belcher said of the hotel.

"But it would take money."