We are open during construction. Please excuse the mess. The following article ran in our local paper this week.
ANDERSON COUNTY — Parking spaces are fewer. The entrances of businesses still open for customers are bare except for exposed metal. And there’s the beep-beep of bulldozers backing up in their tasks.
Such is the scene at the Pruitt Shopping Center on North Main Street in Anderson.
For the most part that will be the scene here for at least the next few months. But that’s OK, say business owners and employees still located at the center, located at the intersection of Main Street and Whitehall Avenue.
One of those excited employees is Jared McCombs of the Model Barber Shop, which has been a mainstay at the shopping center since it was built in the 1960s.
“We are getting a lot of old-timers. They are excited to see it get a face-lift,” said McCombs, who works at the old-fashioned barber shop with his father, Phil. “People stop you out in the parking lot and ask, ‘What’s going on?’”
Bill Martin, whose company, Pruitt Corp. of Anderson, owns the shopping center, had planned for years to renovate the center. However, changes started occurring at this, one of the city’s older shopping centers, in 2007 and 2008.
Prior to Martin’s announcement of the renovations, some businesses, like Arnold’s and Goodbye Goodbuy, moved to other locations. There are nine empty spaces at the shopping center. Model Barber Shop, White Jones Hardware, Carley’s Restaurant, KidStuff Boutique and Master’s Wok are among those who remained.
When Martin announced the renovations, he said he wanted to update the shopping center’s look. Construction started in mid-January, Martin said.
SYS Constructors of Anderson and Greenville was awarded the $1 million contract for the work and has already pulled the signs — the faces — off most of the businesses located in the shopping center. Workers have dug up a portion of the parking lot so new lights, an irrigation system and power lines can be installed underneath.
Martin said the parking lot will be rebuilt in three phases over the next few weeks. Some parking spaces will remain untouched for customers to use in the meantime.
“Everything will dramatically change the way the shopping center looks from the street,” Martin said.
Ryan Boiter, site superintendent with SYS, said the plans for the shopping center’s face-lift includes more plants, trees, flowers and increased lighting for customer safety.
The old façade will be replaced with a tan façade and pillars covered with the same tan color, along with red brick and stone. Windows will be replaced and the frames will be dark brown.
Construction should be finished by June, Boiter said. However, Boiter added that he didn’t really have any dates on when specific areas would be completed.
“It is kind of hard to say what is going to be finished when due to weather,” Boiter said.
In the interim, signs have been posted along North Main Street, letting people know that the businesses there are still open. Connie Ng, of Master’s Wok, said she is excited about the changes. For months now, she has taped a copy of an architect’s rendering of the improved shopping center to the front window of her and her husband’s restaurant.
Business has slowed a little at the restaurant, but it has not deterred the regular customers, she said.
“Parking space is the biggest issue,” Ng said.
But overall, customers and businesses are getting used to the construction, Jared McCombs said. From his barber’s chair, he hears all the questions and gossip about the project. Like he and Connie Ng, most are ready for the new look.
“We know the construction is just a temporary thing and when it’s done, it will look so much better,” McCombs said.
