The Montgomery Building

In 1923, the Montgomery Family, a prominent fixture in Spartanburg’s textile manufacturing industry, commissioned Lockwood Greene Architects to design and oversee construction for what is now known as The Montgomery Building. Located along N. Church Street in downtown Spartanburg, the ten-story building was opened for business in 1924 and was one of the first Chicago-style skyscrapers completed in SC. During its lifetime the iconic building has supported a variety of office tenants, including Lockwood Greene’s headquarters and the BMW Manufacturing Company.

Over the past two decades, the building stood vacant and slowly deteriorated. Several proposals to save the building failed to materialize, and local leaders began to fear the worst for this landmark. In 2015, a new developer and future owner, BF Spartanburg, came forward with a plan to revitalize the building that city officials praised as a “next-level” catalyst for the city. With BF Spartanburg’s vision, the Montgomery Building was saved from eventual demolition and Spartanburg’s central business district saw another key building put back into use.

The finished product is approximately 127,000 SF that includes select boutique retail shops and restaurants on the ground floor, dedicated office space on the second and third floors, and residential apartments on the remaining floors. The economic impact on the City of Spartanburg was felt immediately with most of the space being occupied within the first year. Since its completion, new development and activity along N. Church Street has increased noticeably.

After years of neglect, the original and highly detailed pre-cast concrete façade was delaminating to the point that it was necessary to erect scaffolding along the buildings’ perimeter to protect the street from falling debris until a solution to the problem could be determined.

Unfortunately, the whole façade of historic panels were not structurally sound and had to be replaced.

The result of extensive work with the NPS, architects and the engineers was that the Montgomery building is one of the only projects in the country that was allowed by the NPS to completely remove and replace the exterior façade of a historic building and still receive tax credits.

The original wooden windows were replaced in the 1970’s with “modern” aluminum windows. Unable to match the historic details with aluminum replica windows, real wood windows were fabricated, tested, and installed, matching every detail of the 1923 originals.

The long neglected ten-story landmark was completely renovated on the exterior to the last detail. The interior public spaces and residential floors were restored as well leaving the business and theater spaces ready for tenant upfit.