The Alexander County Historic Preservation Committee (HPC) recently toured the downtown commercial district of Statesville. Alexander HPC members are Commissioner Larry Yoder, Helen Chestnut, Nancy Coley, Betty Long, and Lee Sharpe. Alexander County EDC’s Business Development Manager, Connie Kincaid, serves as the County’s HPC staff liaison.
The HPC received a guided tour from preservation developers Michael and Diane Young of LMY, Inc. in Salisbury. The historic preservation specialists, consultants, and developers preserve and manage historic commercial, residential, and manufacturing properties, many located in Salisbury and now Statesville. Their most recent project is the preservation of The Jenkins Building, located at 212 South Center Street in Downtown Statesville.
LMY, Inc. shared its plans for 212 South Center Street with the Alexander HPC on June 14. The historic tax credit project will include two retail spaces, one office space, and four upper-floor residential units.
With the preservation of the 1922 building as the goal, LMY researched specific architectural components of the building as seen in a historical photograph. The word “Belden” stamped on the back of an original brick helped them to discover the Belden Brick Company in Canton, Ohio, which originally produced the brick. Luckily, they were still in business and LMY was able to purchase matching bricks to restore the original sill course below the upper story windows similar to the one seen in the photo that accompanies this article.
The storefront and upper-story windows are being reproduced to replicate the original architectural aspects of the building. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 as part of the Statesville Commercial Historic District.
Marin Tomlin, a realtor with Allen Tate in Statesville and former Downtown Statesville Development Corporation Executive Director, explained how the Main Street organization worked to acquire the building working towards the goal of finding the right owner to redevelop it as a historic tax credit project that included the creation of upper-story residential. The organization was glad to have received a proposal from LMY, Inc. to redevelop the building, as it met all of the board’s goals.
Tomlin also shared the process that was involved in phases I & II of the city’s streetscape project that occurred between 2011 and 2016. The project involved the replacement of aging water, stormwater, and electric lines. Electric lines went underground and waterlines were added to both sides of the street. The above-ground improvements included narrowing the streets, widening the sidewalks, adding bulb-outs, expanding the planting areas and flowerpots, new surface accents of brick and stone, new lighting, new outdoor seating areas, and new trash cans and recycling containers. During the construction, the City of Statesville and DSDC took a proactive approach by taking the necessary steps to ensure local property and business owners would be provided with the services needed to conduct their business with the least amount of disruption during construction. The approximately $8 million construction project took two years of planning, and the two different phases each took approximately 12-18 months to complete. The results of the streetscape project are now helping to attract developers like LMY, Inc. to purchase, preserve, and redevelop historic properties in Downtown Statesville.