Main Street South Carolina recognized Laurens’ Bailey Building with the Excellence on Main Street Award. This award recognizes the top project from among the winners in eight categories of the annual Main Street Inspiration Awards. The Bailey Building also won the Gaines Jontz Rehabilitation Award from Main Street South Carolina.
The Gaines Jontz Rehabilitation Award recognizes excellence in facade or total building rehabilitation. The project must demonstrate quality and appropriateness of design, materials and construction, and have a positive impact on the commercial district.
The historic courthouse square in Laurens — the site of concerted revitalization efforts by the City of Laurens and Main Street Laurens — is home to the Bailey Building, a prominent structure dating to 1907 and once known as the Palmetto Bank Building. Its upper floors became vacant in the 1970s and had grown dilapidated.
In 2020, Gary and Apryl Bailey bought the building to provide a new home for their expanding accounting firm, ultimately renovating it through a $2.5 million investment, made possible thanks to historic tax credits, a designation under the tax-freezing Bailey Bill — named for an unrelated lawmaker — and abandoned buildings credits. Between rising construction costs and a wider project scope, renovation costs far exceeded the Baileys’ original $500,000 renovation budget, and so they pursued additional loans to make the project work.
The Baileys conducted two years of meticulous work in partnership with the city, Main Street Laurens, the SC State Historic Preservation Office, Greenway Construction and In-Site Designs. The building now has two street-level storefronts, and Love Bailey CPAs on the second floor. Its top floor, once a Masonic lodge, now houses the Palmetto Room, an event space overlooking the courthouse. Today, the building features historically appropriate fixtures, a display of hand-lettered office doors from its past and a mural celebrating its former role as a bank.
“The Bailey Building now stands as a testament to the power of public-private partnerships in preserving iconic community structures and keeping them a part of the economic and community life in a downtown district,” said Jenny Boulware, Main Street SC manager.
Main Street SC is a program of the Municipal Association of South Carolina. It empowers residents, business owners and local officials with the knowledge, skills, tools and organizational structure necessary to revitalize their downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts into vibrant centers of commerce and community.
Main Street SC follows the National Main Street’s Four Point Approach — economic vitality, design, promotion and organization. Each year, Main Street South Carolina recognizes members’ achievements and successes in downtown revitalization. For more information, visit the Municipal Association’s website at www.masc.sc (keyword: Main Street).
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