1649 Main Street

One of the oldest surviving buildings in Columbia's Main Street Commercial Historic District, 1649 Main served alternately as Hendrix grocery and dry goods store, Ruff Hardware Store, and Hennessey's restaurant over the course of its long history.

Unfortunately, the building had fallen into deep disrepair after many years of vacancy and needed extensive rehabilitation work when Main & Blanding LLC purchased the building in 2015. The new owner saw great potential in the building's location and character and set out to adapt the building for new use while carefully preserving its historic elements.

The project team looked to historic photographs and descriptions to inform design for its adaptive reuse. Historic newspaper photographs illustrated the building's mid-20th century facade - the building's rehabilitation restored its historic storefront system to match 1930s and 1940s images taken from Main Street. The original hard wood floors were restored in both the first and second levels. The concrete floor in the basement was stained and sealed to preserve the basement's historic floor materials but minimize dust. Removal of drop ceilings and the late 20th century mezzanine exposed the building's historic trusses and pressed tin ceilings. Site work included removing sections of the sidewalk on Blanding Street to restore the property's historic grade and provide daylight to the basement level, rendering this space useful to new tenants. 

These early rehabilitation tactics attracted the attention of local business owners charmed by the building's reinvigorated character and eager to capitalize on its location in Columbia's Main Street district.

The tenants respective building upfits continued the revitalization of Main Street northward, expanding one of Columbia's primary business and arts and entertainment districts while preserving an important vestige of the city's architectural and economic history.