Revitalization Edition - 1736 Magazine, Winter 2020

WINTER 2020 

The 

REVITALIZATION 

of DOWNTOWN 

AUGUSTA 

PRESERVATION EDITION 

• High cost, low payback 

constrain developers from 

tackling big projects 

1736Magazine.com • $6.95 

• Historic Broad Street 

bank branch returning 

to former glory

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TONY BERNADOS 

EDITOR 

DAMON CLINE 

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CONTENTS 

4 

PICTURE THIS 

6 

OUR VIEW 

11 

OTHER VOICES: PAUL KING 

14 

COVER STORY: 

THE PRICE OF PRESERVATION 

32 

AUGUSTA’S ARCHITECT: 

G. LLOYD PREACHER 

36 

BACK TO BANKING 

40 

15 PROPERTIES WITH POTENTIAL 

44 

LOST TO TIME 

70 

60 

54 

ALWAYS THERE 

60 

LIVING IN HISTORY 

70 

THE GREAT FIRE OF 1916 

76 

PARKING UPDATE 

78 

ON THE STREET: 

MARGARET WOODARD 

80 

BRIEFING 

82 

GRADING DOWNTOWN 

83 

FINAL WORDS 

COVER IMAGE BY: MICHAEL HOLAHAN 

IN THE NEXT ISSUE OF 1736 

Augusta’s urban core has nearly every type of business 

found in a typical city except one: a full-service 

supermarket. What will it take for the city in terms of 

population and demographics to attract – and retain – a 

grocery store to an area many have labeled a “food 

desert?” 

1736magazine.com | 3

PICTURE THIS 

4 | 1736magazine.com

The sun sets on downtown Augusta’s 

skyline as seen from the North 

Augusta Municipal Building in North 

Augusta, S.C. [MICHAEL HOLAHAN/ 

THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE] 


OUR VIEW 

The home of Dr. Scipio S. 

Johnson, a prominent member 

of Augusta’s African-American 

community, sits at 1420 

Twiggs St. in the Bethlehem 

section of the Laney-Walker/ 

Bethlehem neighborhood. The 

National Register of Historic 

Places-listed home is a prime 

candidate for certified historic 

rehabilitation. [DAMON CLINE/ 


MAKE PRESERVATION 

a city priority 

By DAMON CLINE 

LOSS OF BUILDINGS IN HISTORIC DISTRICTS 

ROBS FUTURE GENERATIONS OF CITY’S PAST 

Picture yourself as a tourist visiting Augusta for the first time. 

You and your spouse plan to stay at the James Hotel, 

a boutique inn fashioned from a century-old downtown 

building at the corner of Ninth and Telfair streets. 

After settling in, you meander across the scenic Barrett Plaza to 

have dinner at the trendy Locomotive restaurant inside Union Station, 

a turn-of-the-century train depot creatively re-purposed into a 

bustling mixed-use development. 


A row of shotgun shacks line a street in Olde Town. Some argue such structures are not worthy of 

preservation; others say they are cultural treasures that would be missed if demolished. [SPECIAL/ 

HISTORIC AUGUSTA INC.-JAMES R. LOCKHART] 

You cap off your evening by sampling 

a couple of signature cocktails at Postal, 

an eclectic bar with rave reviews that’s 

housed in the Gothic Romanesqueinspired 

Federal Building just a block 

away. 

It sounds like a delightful experience, 

doesn’t it? 

Unfortunately, that particular alternative-reality 

scenario will never materialize. 

Those historic buildings no longer 

exist. 

Each was unceremoniously demolished 

long ago during an era when community 

leaders saw the old buildings as impediments 

to progress, rather than treasured 

architectural assets worth preserving. 

The city can never bring back the James 

Hotel, Union Station or the old Federal 

Building, but it can certainly work to prevent 

the neglect and destruction of other 

historic buildings in the central business 

district and its surrounding residential 

neighborhoods. 

It is a worthy endeavor. The link 

between economic development and the 

preservation of character-rich buildings 

and neighborhoods is undeniable. 

There is a reason Charleston, S.C., 

and Savannah, Ga., perennially occupy 

slots in the top five U.S. cities to visit, 

as judged by readers of Travel + Leisure 

magazine. 

Those city’s historic preservation 

efforts, which began in the 1920s and 

1930s, have given them an incomparable 

“sense of place.” 

Increased tourism is merely one byproduct 

of historic preservation. Demographers 

have for years written about 

millennials’ penchant for living, working 

and playing in “unique” and “authentic” 

spaces. 

In Augusta, critical mass for such space 

can only be found in one area: the urban 

core. 

The metro area’s outer suburbs have 

their own quality-of-life benefits, but 

they lack the character, culture and 

charm found in the central business 

district and the historic neighborhoods of 

Olde Town, Harrisburg, Summerville and 

Laney-Walker/Bethlehem. 

Protecting these areas is paramount. 

Not all city officials and staffers “get it,” 

but fortunately, some do. 

“We want to make sure the majority 

of our neighborhoods in and around 

downtown are protected to the extent 

that they can be,” said Erik Engle, a senior 

planner with the Augusta Planning Commission 

who serves as staff liaison to the 

12-member city Historic Preservation 

Commission. 

Each section of the urban core has its 

own set of challenges. Olde Town, for 

example, is a city-designated historic district 

with preservation-minded rules and 

regulations that help protect its unique 

character. The other two urban neighborhoods 

have no such standards. 

In the historic Harrisburg-West End 

area – a once-vibrant working-class 

community whose decline was accelerated 

by the loss of the city’s textile industry 

– revitalization efforts are primarily the 

domain of grassroots organizations such 

as Turn Back The Block. 

But in the war against blight, such 

nonprofits face an uphill battle. The sheer 

volume of decaying late 19th and early 

20th century homes is overwhelming. 

“Unfortunately, we’re seeing a lot of 

those neighborhoods fall apart, in a way,” 

Engle said. “Would we like to see more 

preservation in those areas? Absolutely. 

But it really has to come from the neighborhood 

itself.” 

The Laney-Walker/Bethlehem neighborhood 

was a city-designated district 

until its residents voted to shed the 

designation years ago. Although the 

historically African-American neighborhood 

is currently the focus of a city hotel 

tax-funded revitalization initiative, the 

program’s primary solution to dealing 

with abandoned or dilapidated homes has 

been demolition rather than restoration. 

Vacant lots in the neighborhood are 

abundant. Some newer homes and multifamily 

developments built during the past 

several years – such as those developed 

by the quasi-governmental Augusta 

Neighborhood Improvement Corp. 

and a host of U.S. Housing and Urban 

Development-funded community housing 

development organizations – blend 

in nicely with the surrounding neighborhood. 

Others do not. 


RIGHT: A cluster of stately Victorian-era homes line Greene Street 

in the locally designated downtown historic district, which offers 

special protection to historic structures. BELOW: A sunrise over the 

Harrisburg neighborhood illuminates historic commercial buildings 

at the corner of Broad Street and Crawford Avenue. [SPECIAL/ 

HISTORIC AUGUSTA INC.-JAMES R. LOCKHART] 

“Even though the city has put a lot of 

money and time into restoring Laney- 

Walker, they’re not restoring it in the 

sense of historic preservation,” said Erick 

Montgomery, executive director of Historic 

Augusta Inc. 

To some Baby Boomers, the urban 

core’s century-old shotgun shacks are 

symbols of hardscrabble poverty that 

should be eliminated. As Augusta Commissioner 

Marion Williams famously said 

in 2015, the structures “are not history to 

any black man” worth preserving. 

Perhaps. But race aside, the modest 

row houses throughout the inner city 

are an integral part of Augusta’s history. 

They are unique. They tell the city’s 

story to future generations of visitors and 

residents. 

And from a practical standpoint, such 

homes have potential to be affordable 

“retro” housing solutions for a new generation 

of homeowners, who have shown 

an affinity for urban living in smaller 

dwellings. 

Is every old home and commercial 

building in the urban core worth saving? 

No. Some are far too gone to rehabilitate. 

Some pose a public-safety hazard. Some 

are dens of illicit activity. Some decrease 

the value of surrounding properties. And 

in some rare instances, some buildings 

do need to be torn down in the name 

of progress – such as the demolition of 

the old Belk department store and four 

others on the 800 block of Broad Street to 

make way for the Augusta Common, the 

urban park that city founder Gen. James 

Oglethorpe planned more than 250 years 

earlier. 

As much as it may pain preservationists, 

some old buildings do need to be removed. 

Maintenance appears to be the key to 

successfully preserving culturally-rich 

buildings in Augusta’s urban core. Simply 

put, buildings become dilapidated when 

the community allows them to become 

dilapidated. 

“Ideally, the No. 1 goal is to maintain 

what you have – maintain what is existing,” 

Engle said. “At the end of the day, 

it does honestly look better when people 

just kind of maintain what’s there.” 

When it comes to revitalizing the urban 

core, preservation should be the city’s 

default setting, particularly in the city’s 

central business district, where the vast 

majority of buildings are commercial 

properties. 

As the heart of the city, the central 

business district is the one place where 

people from all parts of the metro area 

congregate. It also is the place where 

most first-time visitors develop their 

impressions of Augusta. 

Code-enforcement is crucial. A certain 

level of tolerance for the cash-strapped 

homeowner who can’t properly maintain 

a home is understandable, but should 

real estate investors and businesspeople 

owning dilapidated commercial properties 

in the city center receive such leniency? 


The court of public opinion would likely say “no.” 

Some cities across the country have 

experimented with vacant-building fees and 

increased property tax assessments on unused 

or distressed properties to motivate owners to 

bring their buildings up to snuff or sell them. 

Such programs have seen mixed results, but 

some in Augusta would be willing to advocate 

for public-sector solutions to solve the problem 

of neglected private properties, some of 

which are historically, culturally and architecturally 

significant. 

“What is the city able to do and what are 

they willing to do to bring these do-nothing 

property owners to their senses – to either 

sell it, to let somebody else do it or to do some 

minimal thing to keep it from falling down from 

neglect?” Montgomery said. 

Augusta’s urban core has lost far too many 

architectural treasures during the past 60 

years, in both its residential areas and its central 

business district. 

After a decades-long period of decline, those 

areas are inching toward vibrancy in this new 

millennium. If there was ever a time for community 

leaders, public officials and the general 

public to unite behind historic preservation 

efforts, that time is now. 

It’s time to stop robbing future visitors and 

residents of the city’s storied past. 

A sign at the corner 

of Ninth and Hopkins 

streets in the Laney- 

Walker/Bethlehem 

neighborhood advertises 

future construction by 

one of several entities 

building new housing 

in the historic African- 

American neighborhood. 

[DAMON CLINE/THE 

AUGUSTA CHRONICLE] 


OTHER VOICES 

Paul King stands outside his Rex Property & Management LLC office on 

Monte Sano Avenue, where he oversees more than 200 residential units 

throughout Augusta’s urban core. [DAMON CLINE/THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE] 

PAST IS PREVIEW: 

Historic preservation 

incentives kick-start 

downtown revitalization 

By PAUL KING 

Guest Columnist 

In a shockingly hot June 1981, a young engineer moved 1,100 

miles from coastal New Hampshire to Augusta. 

What he found when looking for a home were some nice 

new apartment complexes along Washington Road and some 

very attractive historic homes in the Olde Town neighborhood that 

had been recently rehabbed, converted to apartments through the 

preservation technique called “adaptive reuse.” 

Yes, that engineer was me. 

Not knowing the area, I took the conservative route and picked 

the apartment complex. One year later, I couldn’t move to Olde 

Town fast enough. 


King Kat and the Elders perform at downtown Augusta’s Stillwater Taproom in this file image from 2018. Historic preservationists see a direct link between 

today’s vibrant downtown economy and tax-assisted building renovation efforts that began more than four decades ago. [THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE] 

Young, fun and interesting people 

were moving into the changing neighborhood, 

where historic-preservationfor-profit 

pioneer Peter Knox Jr. – 

“Mr. Pete,” as many knew him – and 

his company, Downtown Augusta Inc. 

were changing the face of the neighborhood 

using the historic preservation tax 

credits created through the Tax Reform 

Act of 1976. 

A few small investors joined in 

the use of preservation tax credits to 

rehab downtown buildings – the initial 

efforts in revitalizing Augusta’s urban 

core had begun. 

In 1986, the Tax Reform Act created 

restrictions limiting the use of federal 

historic preservation tax credits. This 

led to a slowdown in tax credit projects 

nationally and in Augusta. 

Georgia state historic preservation 

tax credits first became available 

in 2002 and helped renew interest 

in redevelopment through historic 

preservation in Olde Town and the 

central business district, where Bryan 

Haltermann had led many Broad Street 

tax credit projects, including buildings 

housing the Pizza Joint, Metro, and Art 

on Broad, promoting a generational 

return to the urban core. 

Also, in 2002 the Georgia Cities 

Foundation revolving loan fund was 

created with a preference for downtown 

projects with historic preservation 

components. A Georgia Cities 

Foundation loan would then be used to 

help fund the initial construction work 

converting the former J.B. White’s 

department store on the 900 block of 

Broad into residential condominiums 

with first floor retail tenants. 

HISTORIC 

PRESERVATION 

CHALLENGES IN 

AUGUSTA 

• Conflicts between historic preservation 

and creating density 

• Fickle nature of tax credit programs 

• Economy-of-scale difficulties in using 

credits on small buildings 

• Ongoing public education challenges 

in urban core 

• Underutilized historic buildings 

with market-rate residential potential 

(i.e., the former Bon Air and 

Richmond hotels) 

• Large historic properties facing 

cost-prohibitive rehabilitations under 

current market conditions (i.e., the 

Marion and Lamar buildings) 

• Shortage of downtown parking and 

lack of a parking-management plan 

PRESERVATION continues on 42 


COVER STORY 

Price The of 

Preservation 

Saving Augusta’s old buildings comes with risks, rewards 

Story by DAMON CLINE 

Photos by MICHAEL HOLAHAN 

Architect Brad King, of 2KM 

Architects, stands outside his 

firm’s office, the historic Jacob 

Phinizy home in Augusta. 



Mark Donahue, president of Peach Contractors, stands with before-and-after photos of the Lowrey Wagon Works building at 

912 Ellis St. Donahue’s company completed a historic restoration of the 160-year-old building into 19 loft-style apartments in 2016. 

Mark Donahue parks 

his SUV in front of 

the 102-year-old 

building at 941 Ellis 

St. 

He grabs a key from an oversize ring and 

unlocks the front door that leads to a dozen 

brand-new loft-style apartments. 

He knows every nook and cranny in the 

two-story building, which once housed a 

handkerchief factory, a piano store and a 

warehouse before entering a long period of 

vacancy. 

But Donahue is not a building resident – 

he’s the owner. 

His company, Peach Contractors, 

is responsible for turning the formerly 

dilapidated E.M. Andrews Furniture Co. 

warehouse into a 12-unit complex. 

“This building had a hole in the roof big 

enough to drop a car through when we 

purchased it,” Donahue says while climbing 

stairs his carpenters built not more than a 

year ago. 

After concluding his tour, Donahue gets 

back in his tool-littered Tahoe and heads 

east toward a Victorian-era home at 448 

Greene St. 

The 19th century residence – like the Ellis 

Street warehouse – is a property Donahue 

saved from irreparable decay. 

“This is the gem. I got an award from the 

state of Georgia for this one,” he says nonchalantly 

as he pulls to the curb. 

The elegant three-story home was built in 

the 1870s for Reuben B. Wilson, a wealthy 

Augusta grocer. It is known to preservationists 

as the Zachariah Daniel House, 

named for the home’s second owner, who 

also happened to be in the grocery business. 


Buildings on the corner of Ninth and Telfair streets in downtown Augusta are being 

marketed for renovation into office, retail and residential space. 

Donahue’s company meticulously 

restored the condemned 

property’s bracketed eaves, hooded 

windows and decorative marble 

masonry joints – called quoins – to 

restore the home into what some 

consider the city’s most outstanding 

example of Second Empire 

architecture. 

When asked about the condition 

of the property when he bought it 

in 2016, his answer is simple: “Very 

bad.” 

Today the 6,500-square-foot 

estate houses 10 income-producing 

apartments, all of which lease as 

quickly as those in his half-dozen 

other downtown buildings. 

Generating revenue is the 

ultimate goal for any real estate 

investor, but this native New 

Yorker also has ulterior motives. 

“I love this stuff – I restore these 

buildings because I love doing it. 

I feel like I’m giving something 

back, I really do,” says Donahue, an 

Augusta resident for more than 30 

years. “I know this sounds corny, 

but I feel like these buildings would 

have been lost. I feel like I’m a caretaker 

for the next generation.” 

Donahue isn’t the only developer 

to find financial success by restoring 

vacant buildings in Augusta’s 

downtown historic district. Local 

preservationists only wish there 

were more Mark Donahues in the 

city, which has dozens of historic 

buildings threatened by neglect, 

encroachment and abandonment. 

PRESERVATION 

OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND 

Founded by Gen. James 

Oglethorpe in 1736, Augusta is a 

target-rich environment for historic 

preservation. 

“The architectural history of 

Augusta is interesting,” said Erick 

Montgomery, executive director 

of Historic Augusta Inc., the city’s 

lead preservation organization. 

“We have examples of every style 

since the Federal period. We don’t 

really have anything that survived 

the Colonial period, but there are 

a lot of historically significant 

buildings.” 

The city’s urban core is home to 

more than a half-dozen historic 

districts listed on the National 

Park Service’s National Register of 

Historic Places. Overlaying those 

National Register Historic Districts 

are three city-designated historic 

districts: Downtown, which 

encompasses the bulk of the central 

business district; Olde Town, 

which covers the east Augusta 

area also known as “Pinched Gut”; 

and Summerville, which includes 

most areas of the tony “Hill” 

neighborhood. 

Summerville’s city designation 

was established in 1994; Downtown 

in 2002; and Olde Town in 2006. 

Each area – to varying degrees 

– has architecturally, culturally or 

historically significant properties 

in danger of being lost to inappropriate 

alterations, demolition or 

decay. 

Many of those buildings have 


ABOVE: Davis Beman 

of Blanchard & Calhoun 

Commercial checks his cell 

phone inside one of the 

vacant buildings at Ninth 

and Telfair streets that he 

is marketing as mixed-use 

space. 

RIGHT: The interior of 

one of the 19th century 

buildings at Ninth and 

Telfair streets reveals 

decades of neglect. 


Beverly Barnhart, founding principal for Davidson Fine Arts School, speaks to the crowd of alumni, faculty, and others gathered 

at the old school building in this November 2015 photo. The building was demolished two months later because of heavy water 

damage it suffered while vacant for 18 years. [FILE/THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE] 

been documented since 2006 

by Historic Augusta’s annual 

“Endangered Properties” list. 

The Zachariah Daniel House, 

for example, made the list in 2015, 

a year before Donahue acquired 

it. The 160-year-old Lowrey 

Wagon Works building, across 

the street from the E.B. Andrews 

warehouse, had been listed since 

2008. Donahue turned the Lowrey 

building into a 19-unit apartment 

building in 2016. 

The three-story Lowrey building 

is particularly rich in history. 

Situated at the corner of Ninth and 

Ellis streets, it was confiscated by 

the Confederacy during the Civil 

War to be a shoe factory. After the 

war it served as a school for freed 

black children until J.H. Lowrey 

reestablished it as a wagon factory 

in 1866. 

It remained in the family until 

the death of Lowrey’s only son, 

Henry, in 1925, at which point it 

was purchased as a warehouse for 

the former J.B. White’s department 

store at 936 Broad St. It 

housed several other commercial 

operations before entering a 

decades-long period of neglect 

during downtown Augusta’s nadir. 

Compiling the Endangered 

Properties list is Historic Augusta’s 

primary means of trying to save 

properties it deems historically 

significant. 

Contrary to public perception, 

the nonprofit organization has no 

enforcement power. It also lacks 

the funds to acquire buildings it 

deems worthy of saving, though it 

has made rare exceptions for properties 

in urgent need of protection, 

such as the home of C.T. Walker in 

the historic Laney-Walker district. 

Unless a property is protected by 

one of Historic Augusta’s 42 preservation 

easements – something 

property owners grant to receive 

tax deductions – the organization 

can’t legally tell owners what to do 

with their buildings. 

“We have zero power except the 

power of public persuasion and 

public opinion,” Montgomery says. 

Even owners of federal National 

Register of Historic Places-listed 

properties – of which there are 


Historic Augusta Executive Director Erick 

Montgomery talks about new properties that 

have been added to the list of endangered 

properties during a press conference in Augusta 

on Nov. 7, including the former Augusta Trunk 

Factory building at 840 Reynolds St. 

more than four dozen in Augusta – are not forbidden 

from making architectural changes or demolishing such 

buildings unless the structures are in one of the three 

locally designated districts, in which case alterations 

and city-code violations become the purview of the 

city’s Historic Preservation Commission. 

The commission has the authority to regulate the 

outside appearance of properties as well as delay – but 

not always prevent – demolition. 

In some cases, Historic Augusta’s PR campaign and 

city enforcement actions aren’t enough to save structures 

from the wrecking ball or being allowed to implode 

on their own, something preservationists call “demolition 

by neglect.” 

Inclusion on Historic Augusta’s endangered list, for 

example, hasn’t stopped several buildings – such as the 

Denning House at 905 Seventh St. and the Southern 

Bell Exchange Building at 937 Ellis St. – from steadily 

deteriorating. 

Other buildings that were listed as endangered – such 

as the old John S. Davidson School at the corner of 11th 

and Telfair streets and the Immaculate Conception 

Academy building at 1016 Laney-Walker Blvd. – were 

demolished despite public protestations. 

Occasionally, the attention results in a victory, 

such as the five-year stay of execution for the former 

Congregation Children of Israel Synagogue, a cityowned 

building at 525 Telfair St., and the relocation of 

the Trinity Christian Methodist Episcopal Church at 731 

Taylor St. 


Architect Brad King, of 2KM Architects, stands inside the historic Jacob Phinizy home in Augusta. 

The synagogue building, which 

the city used as extra office space, is 

scheduled to be demolished unless 

a grassroots organization follows 

through on its plans to turn the 

property into the Augusta Jewish 

Museum by 2021. 

The Trinity CME church was 

scheduled for demolition by 

Atlanta Gas Light as part of a soil 

remediation project near a former 

coal-gas plant until an Augusta 

Canal Authority-secured grant 

funded the building’s move onto 

a new foundation 250 feet away in 

2018. 

The best strategy to saving 

endangered properties is finding 

preservation-minded owners with 

the rare combination of vision and 

capital. 

Montgomery acknowledges it is 

much easier, cheaper and less risky 

for developers to invest in new 

construction than rehabilitate old 

buildings. 

“Money is almost always the 

issue,” he said. “Either they 

(property owners) don’t have it or 

they don’t want to spend it. Then 

you have people that are interested 

and willing who just don’t have 

the funds or the means to raise the 

funds.” 

MAKING THE 

NUMBERS WORK 

The biggest incentive for developers 

to invest in preserving old 

buildings are state and federal historic 

tax credits. When combined, 

the credits can knock off up to 45% 

of the cost for certified rehabilitation 

projects in Georgia. 

The preservation credits are 

“sold” to third parties – who use 

them to offset their state and federal 

income tax liabilities – creating 

cash-back incentives for historic 

rehabilitation projects that would 

otherwise be financially unfeasible. 

The tax credits’ multi-step 

approval process, which is managed 

by the National Park Service, 

requires developers to submit 

detailed pre-construction rehabilitation 

plans to ensure historic 

or architecturally significant 

characteristics are not altered. 

Owners also must prove the work 

was performed to detailed standards 

through photographs and 

inspection. 

Historic property investors also 

are able to take advantage of federal 

“Opportunity Zone” tax benefits 

created under the Tax Cuts and Jobs 

Act of 2017. The provision provides 

tax incentives for re-investing 

unrealized capital gains into economically-distressed 

census tracts. 

Virtually all of Augusta’s urban core 

falls within federal Opportunity 

Zone boundaries. 

Donahue said the preservation 

tax-credit process is complicated 

and takes about a year, but he 

acknowledges he couldn’t have 


PROFILES IN PRESERVATION 

The home of C.T. Walker at 1011 Laney-Walker Blvd. is being 

restored by Historic Augusta Inc. after years of dilapidation 

under private ownership. [SPECIAL PHOTOS] 

C.T. WALKER HOME 

1011 Laney-Walker Boulevard 

The Rev. Charles Thomas 

Walker (1858-1921) was an 

internationally acclaimed 

minister and a pillar of 

Augusta’s African-American 

community. 

One would not know that, 

however, by looking at the 

condition of the house he 

once called home at 1011 

Laney-Walker Blvd. 

The modest two-story 

house, which served as 

Walker’s residence from 1905 

until his death in 1921, spent 

so many years in disrepair 

that it was named one of 

10 “Places in Peril” by the 

Georgia Trust for Historic 

Preservation. 

But the property’s decadeslong 

decay came to an end in 

November 2016 when Historic 

Augusta Inc. was able to 

acquire the home after working 

for years with the heirs of 

The Rev. Charles T. Walker, 

founder of Tabernacle Baptist 

Church and the namesake of 

C.T. Walker Traditional Magnet 

School, was a nationally known 

minister in the early 20th 

century. 

its previous owner. The local preservation group is in the process of 

rehabilitating the 135-year-old house into a historic site, something 

that could be a catalyst for further preservation in the historic 

Laney-Walker neighborhood. 

The home is one of the few residences remaining on Laney- 

Walker Boulevard, which is named for Walker and renowned 

African-American educator Lucy Craft Laney. 

Walker also is the namesake for C.T. Walker Traditional Magnet 

School, and was the founder of Tabernacle Baptist Church, whose 

pews during the late 19th and early 20th centuries attracted everyone 

from freed slaves to President Taft. 

Walker’s widow, Violet Q. Franklin Walker, lived in the home until 

her death in 1928. 

Real estate investors find large, vacant buildings in the downtown historic 

district, such as the Marion Building, shown, too costly to renovate at current 

lease rates. [FILE/THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE] 

financed most of his projects without them. Credits help foot the bill 

for costs that wouldn’t be encountered in new construction, such as 

restoring intricate millwork or bringing a century-old structure up to 

modern safety codes. 

Donahue said hundreds of thousands of dollars went toward 

improvements at the Lowrey, E.M. Andrews and Zachariah Daniel 

House buildings before he could even start building the income-producing 

loft apartments. 

“We spent $100,000 just on fire alarms and sprinklers,” Donahue 

said of the E.M. Andrews building. “Bringing everything up to meet 

all the current codes, that’s where a lot of the big money is. It’s more 

costly to do an old building than it is to do the identical building brand 

new.” 

Davis Beman, head of Blanchard & Calhoun Real Estate’s commercial 

division, is well-versed in helping investors and owners make 

historic redevelopment deals “work.” Beman himself is an investor in 

the historic Red Star Building at 531 Ninth St., a century-old building 

known for housing businesses catering to black train travelers during 

the segregation era. The property is now home to four residential 

units as well as the offices of attorney M. Austin Jackson and the 

contract-labor firm Austin Industrial. 

Beman said historic renovation projects are most convenient for 

property owners who will be the building’s end user, as they are not 

dependent on the ebbs and flows of the local rental market to recoup 

the investment. 

Notable end-user project examples include TaxSlayer’s purchase 

of the former Family Y building at 945 Broad St. to serve as its new 

headquarters, and Loop Recruiting’s purchase of the long-vacant Bee 

Hive building at 972 Broad St. to serve as its main office and that of its 

co-investor, Milestone Construction. Both structures far exceed the 

50-year-old threshold for a building to be considered historic. 

Investors restoring buildings strictly for rental income must weigh 

the redevelopment costs against Augusta’s current demand for 


commercial and residential space, Beman said. They also must take 

into account the city’s current lease rates, which are rising but still 

comparatively low compared to peer cities. 

A final consideration is a property’s potential “density” – the 

maximum number of income-generating units it can yield. New 

buildings are designed with density in mind; historic buildings are 

often constrained by their original footprints and interior floorplans. 

Beman is currently marketing an amalgam of 19th century structures 

for redevelopment just north of the Red Star Building. The 

properties, which occupy the northwest corner of Ninth and Telfair 

streets, are individually owned by Kevin Steffes, founder of Vision 

Wireless, and Frank and Adele Damiano, the proprietors of the 

Damiano Co. dry goods store. 

Steffes bought his vacant buildings, which include the former 

Georgia State Floral Distributors warehouse, in 2017 for $175,000 to 

house his managed mobile-services firm. He later chose to locate in 

the Augusta University office tower at 699 Broad St. The Damianos, 

which occupy space in one of two buildings it owns on the block, are 

seeking to sell so they can retire. 

Like many owners of older buildings, Beman said Steffes and the 

Damianos are hopeful increased demand for downtown Augusta real 

estate will produce an interested tenant or buyer. Each party has the 

luxury of waiting, as their cost basis in the properties are relatively 

low. 

“It’s a renovation project that is going to be pretty costly, and its 

going to take time for the rental rates to justify the cost of building 

it out,“ acknowledges Beman, who is marketing the buildings as a 

mixed-use package deal. 

The property cluster’s proximity to the Augusta Judicial Center, 

the U.S. District Court complex and the newly built Augusta Fire 

Department station make it a good candidate for upper-floor apartments 

with ground-level office and retail tenants. 

The former warehouse building is a wide-open “blank slate,” 

Beman’s colleague Alex Griffin said. 

“This could be an awesome restaurant or coffee shop on the 

corner,” he said. 

One of the block’s vacant buildings already has a residential lineage; 

it was used as a boarding house for railroad workers during the 

early 20th century. The buildings are a block away from the site of the 

former Union Station train depot, an ornate Spanish Renaissancestyled 

building demolished nearly five decades ago. The property on 

which it sat is now occupied by the U.S. Postal Service’s downtown 

office, a product of 1970s-era institutional architecture. 

Beman said the Steffes and Damiano buildings still retain their 19th 

century character. The warehouse, for example, has brick arches with 

cast-iron supports where large windows used to be. The adjoining 

building also has large windows that could once again be opened up to 

natural light. 

The building was bricked over after sustaining damage during 

the 1970 Augusta riot. Windows broken during the unrest were left 

untouched, and are still visible from the inside. 

“They never replaced the glass,” Beman said. “They just put bricks 

over the front.” 

OLD BUILDINGS, NEW CHALLENGES 

Some old buildings are easier to restore than others. An architect 

often is needed to determine just how much work is needed to breathe 

new life into a long-vacant property. 

ENTERPRISE MILL 

1450 Greene St. 


The historic renovation of Enterprise Mill in the late 1990s made 

it cool to “live, work and play” in downtown Augusta again. 

The former textile mill, whose oldest section dates back to an 

1848 flour mill, was purchased in 1997 by Augusta businessman 

Clayton P. Boardman III as an adaptive-reuse project to turn the 

19th century industrial property into a mixed-use facility with 

residential, office and retail units. 

Having been shuttered in 1983 by former owner The Graniteville 

Co., the $15 million project involved removing more than 5,000 

tons of debris, restoring the building’s original 500 windows and 

re-roofing the entire structure. 

Today, the 260,000-square-foot complex is home to dozens of 

residents, several large commercial tenants and the Augusta Canal 

National Heritage Area Interpretive Center, which gives visitors 

a glimpse of what mill life was like during the city’s Industrial 

Revolution heyday. 

The property is replete with vestiges of its past, including 

hand-painted signs on interior walls, hardwood floors embedded 

with metal pieces used during the spinning process and a working 

turbine powered by the flowing waters of the Augusta Canal. 

The massive project was not a high-profit venture for the developer 

– Boardman sold the property in 2006 for $13 million – but it 

did give Augusta one of its most treasured downtown assets. 

An aerial view of Enterprise Mil in 1994 shows it at the height of 

its decay. [FILE PHOTOS/THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE] 



Jack Weinstein, president of the Augusta Jewish Museum (left) 

stands outside the future Augusta Jewish Museum along with 

Studio 3 Design Group architect Ellen Pruitt and Historic Augusta 

Executive Director Erick Montgomery. [FILE/THE AUGUSTA 

CHRONICLE] 

CONGREGATION CHILDREN 

OF ISRAEL SYNAGOGUE 

525 Telfair St. 

Jewish families have been 

in Augusta since 1802. But 

a purpose-built synagogue 

for them to worship in didn’t 

come until 1869, when the 

cornerstone was laid for what 

would be the Congregation 

Children of Israel Synagogue 

on Telfair Street. 

The Greek Revival-style 

temple they completed in 

1872 is believed to be the 

oldest building in Georgia 

built as a synagogue. 

In 1950, after worshiping at 

the building nearly 80 years, 

the congregation moved to 

a new synagogue on Walton 

Way. The building was sold to 

engineering firm Patchen and 

Zimmerman, which used it 

as an office. It was later purchased 

by the city of Augusta 

to house various departments 

over the years. 

When the city announced 

plans in 2015 to demolish the 

building, and an even older 

adjacent building called the 

The Jewish Synagogue at 525 

Telfair St., depicted in this early 

20th century postcard, was 

dedicated in 1869. The building 

was used until the congregation 

moved to the Summerville 

neighborhood in the 1950s. 

[SPECIAL] 

Court of the Ordinary, area Jewish families and historic preservationists 

rallied to protest the destruction. 

The Augusta Jewish Museum board was organized to protect 

the buildings by creating an educational center for residents and 

visitors to learn about the Jewish community’s history and contributions 

to the metro area. 

The city agreed to give the newly formed group five years – until 

July 2021 – to raise the money, do the restoration and open the 

museum before the buildings revert back to city ownership and 

eventual demolition. 

Brad King, a project architect at Augusta’s 2KM Architects, has 

served as an adviser on several preservation projects, including his own 

employer’s move to 529 Greene St., the former home of Jacob Phinizy, 

a former Augusta mayor and Georgia Railroad Bank president. 

The property, built in 1882, also housed the Poteet Funeral Home 

during the latter half of the 20th century. The Second Empire-styled 

structure spent nearly a decade in decay before 2KM moved in during 

2012. The work, which included discovering previously hidden wall 

paintings, was completed in 2014. 

King, who received his historic preservation certificate while earning 

a master’s degree at the University of Cincinnati, said several 

“test fit” plans he has conducted for clients in downtown Augusta 

never came to fruition because they uncovered costs the investor 

hadn’t anticipated. 

“I don’t think owners always know, going into it, what they’re getting 

themselves into,” King said. “It’s our job as architects to educate 

them on what it’s going to take, especially if they’re trying to get tax 

credits.” 

The obstacles to bonafide historic renovations can be plentiful. 

Tax credit rules might require, for example, a developer spend more 

repairing old wood-frame windows instead of buying newer, more 

energy-efficient ones. Sometimes there is costly asbestos and lead 

abatement. And there are almost always compliance issues with 

modern safety codes and the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

“A lot of these buildings were not made ADA-accessible,” King 

said. “If it wasn’t built with an elevator shaft and your tenant space is 

on the second floor, you’ve got to put in an elevator.” 

Modern safety codes also require two forms of egress – unobstructed 

exit paths. That makes large, multi-story structures with 

only one stairwell extremely expensive to rehabilitate, King said. 

In the case of the Lamar and Marion buildings – two of downtown 

Augusta’s tallest vacant historic buildings – constructing a second 

stairwell in either building that would simultaneously meet code and 

satisfy tax-credit standards could easily top $1 million, a sum that 

equals the last recorded sales price of both buildings combined. 

Increasing construction costs, coupled with downtown Augusta’s 

current rental rates – which are roughly 30% below the national average, 

according to the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis – are the 

primary reason many of the city’s largest vacant buildings remain 

idle. 

Beman notes that Georgia’s tax-credit law creates a catch-22. The 

time and expense of obtaining state and federal credits is the same 

whether a developer rehabilitates a 1,000-square-foot building or 

a 100,000-square-foot building, creating a disincentive to obtain 

credits on small projects. 

Compounding the problem in Georgia is the large gaps in the 

maximum credits allowed under the state’s three-tier system for 

commercial buildings: $300,000, $5 million and $10 million. 

Many projects don’t easily fit into the boxes, making owners choose 

between a less-desirable piecemeal investment over time or potentially 

biting off more than they can chew. 

“So there’s this kind of dichotomy of being too small to be worth 

the trouble for tax credits, and being too big and having to stay under 

a threshold,” Beman said. 

Low-end credit caps are more generous in nearby states: South 

Carolina’s is $1 million; Alabama’s is $5 million; and North Carolina’s 

is $15 million. 

Augusta businessman and philanthropist Clay Boardman, best 



MILLER THEATER 

708 Broad St. 

Mark Donahue, president of Peach Contractors, stands at 448 Greene St., a 

historic Victorian-era estate his company renovated into 10 apartment units. 

known for rehabilitating the long-vacant Enterprise Mill into a successful 

mixed-use property and purchasing the historic Houghton 

School building for Heritage Academy, is a partner in the company 

that owns the Marion Building. 

Boardman said the building has been under contract to sell at least 

four times during the past five years. Each time the deal fell though 

after the prospective developer ran a pro forma to rehabilitate the 

10-story mid-rise into an income-producing property. 

Even contributing the building at cost for an equity stake in the 

proposed developments wasn’t enough to sway investors. 

“I have many friends in (South Carolina) and elsewhere that want 

to invest in Augusta and they have visited many times,“ Boardman 

said. ”They simply can’t make the numbers work.” 

Augusta’s low-cost real estate market is a double-edged sword: 

Residents benefit from affordable prices, but investors have less 

incentive to take on the costly challenges of turning older buildings 

into livable residences. 

“If you want hip, cool, innovative developments in Augusta, the 

risks often don’t justify the potential reward. It’s just a fact,” he said. 

“I hate it because I love Augusta and stand ready to invest further, but 

given a choice, and a limited pool of investment funds, it can prove far 

smarter to invest elsewhere.” 

Donahue makes his projects work financially by seeking out rightsized 

properties and by acting as his own general contractor and 

The Miller Theater was one of the biggest victims of urban 

decay in Augusta during the 1980s – but few seemed to realize it 

until the historic theater reopened in grand style on Jan. 6, 2018. 

It was only then that people realized what they had been missing 

all those years; the Italian marble terrazzo, the black walnut 

millwork and the stellar acoustics that made the Miller one of the 

finest theaters in the Southeast. 

The Art Moderne-style venue Frank J. Miller opened in 1940 was 

the second-largest in the state, behind only Atlanta’s Fox Theatre. 

The Broad Street theater played host to scores of performances 

and hundreds of films from Hollywood’s golden era, including the 

world premiere of “The Three Faces of Eve” in 1957. 

Suburban multiplexes led to the Miller’s downfall and the venue 

closed for good in 1984, starting a two-decade period of dilapidation 

that went unabated until 2005 when Augusta philanthropist 

Peter Knox IV purchased and mothballed the building to stave off 

further damage. 

Three years later the theater and an adjoining building – the former 

Cullum’s department store – were offered as a permanent home to 

the Augusta Symphony through a $23 million community campaign 

that culminated with the theater’s historic reopening in 2018. 

With the exception of state and federal historic tax credits and 

$5.1 million from a special purpose local option sales tax package, 

the money was contributed from individuals, corporations and 

foundations. 

It remains Augusta’s largest historic preservation project to date. 

A 2009 photo of the Miller Theater’s lobby shows its dilapidation 

from more than three decades of neglect. 

[FILE PHOTOS/THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE] 



A photo from 2018 shows the Trinity CME Church building sitting in 

the middle of Taylor Street on its way to a new site. [FILE PHOTOS/ 


TRINITY CHRISTIAN METHODIST 

EPISCOPAL CHURCH 

731 Taylor St. 

Moving a 400-ton church building from the 19th century 250 

feet onto a new foundation is not an ordinary undertaking. But the 

Trinity CME church on Taylor Street is not your ordinary building. 

The 130-year-old church, known as “Mother Trinity,” is the birthplace 

of the CME denomination. And before it was hoisted on steel girders 

and rolled on special dollies to its new location near the Augusta 

Canal’s third level in June 2018, it was destined for the wrecking ball. 

The historic church where a young James Brown learned to play 

the piano was targeted for demolition for nearly 20 years under a 

plan to remediate the soil underneath that was contaminated by 

the century-long operation of a nearby Atlanta Gas Light plant. 

An Augusta Canal Authority-negotiated plan enabled the church 

built by former slaves in the 1890s to move to its new location, 

enabling the cleanup of coal tar to resume while giving the old 

building new life as a community center, arts venue or trail head. 

Earlier remediation phases leveled all buildings in the area 

except the church, whose congregation relocated to a new building 

on Glenn Hills Drive. 

“What a glorious day it is,” said the Rev. Herman “Skip” Mason, 

pastor of Augusta’s new Trinity CME, as he watched the old church 

slowly roll across Taylor Street to its new site on June 13, 2018. “We 

give glory to God, but we also must give thanks to the Augusta 

Canal Authority.” 

Broken glass and other debris litter the floor near the banister at 

Trinity CME Church in this photo from 2014. 

property manager. Master carpenter Mitch Kirkendohl manages 

Donahue’s construction crews while office manager Michele 

Meehan oversees the leasing. 

“I wouldn’t be able to do these things without them,” Donahue 

said. 

Until Augusta reaches a point where demand for downtown 

real estate creates greater yields for investors, King said the city’s 

best chance for redeveloping vacant historic properties lies with 

end-user occupants and long-term investors with a soft spot for 

preservation. 

“I think the whole thing behind it is people have so much instant 

gratification these days – that people aren’t willing to wait until 

things are profitable,” he said. “You could do a (large project) and 

it might be a 15-year payback instead of a five-year payback. So 

there has to be an intention behind the economics of it; there has 

to be a passion as well.” 

WHEN PRESERVATION AND PROGRESS COLLIDE 

Few locals seemed to notice the unassuming brick building 

that’s been crumbling for decades at the northwest corner of the 

Augusta Common. 

That is, until the building’s current owner – Augusta-based 

Azalea Investments – discovered it was in danger of collapsing 

and petitioned for demolition last fall. 

Suddenly, many people became highly interested in the 

building. 

The long-vacant property quickly appeared on Historic 

Augusta’s 2020 Endangered Properties list. 

Research determined the building at 840 Reynolds St. had a 

peculiar origin: It was constructed at the turn-of-the-century as 

the Augusta Trunk Factory for Mary Cleckley, making the twostory 

structure the site of one of the city’s earliest woman-owned 

enterprises. 

“She had a very successful business at a time when very few 

women had businesses and very few women built buildings of 

their own,” Montgomery said of Cleckley during a November 

press conference highlighting the list. 

Azalea soon found itself in a place no real estate developer wants 

to be: owning a building whose cultural value exceeds its financial 

worth. 

The Augusta Historic Preservation Commission generally 

frowns on the demolition of historic buildings in the three citydesignated 

districts, except in extreme cases. 

“We know what the commission will say, in a way,” said Erik 

Engle, a senior planner with the Augusta Planning Commission 

who serves as staff liaison to the 12-member preservation board. 

“We really do try to work with (owners) so if there is an absolute 

need for demolition, we know why.” 

The preservation commission has historically encouraged 

owners to explore ways to save at least parts of structurally compromised 

buildings, as it has in the case of 840 Reynolds. 

“We’re always trying to figure out how to work with whatever 

their pro forma says to find out how to incorporate (the historic) 

elements into the site,” Engle said. “Like, why not try to stabilize 

two of the facades and incorporate that into the design somehow.” 

When demolition is the only option, city ordinances require 

owners submit a redevelopment plan to ensure properties 

do not become vacant lots in perpetuity. The “certificate of 


Mark Donahue, from right, president of Peach 

Contractors, stands with office manager 

Michele Meehan and his master carpenter 

Mitch Kirkendohl at 448 Greene St., a historic 

Victorian-era estate his company renovated 

into 10 apartment units. 

appropriateness” process also strives 

to verify replacement structures 

will aesthetically conform to its 

surroundings. 

Azalea President Derek May said 

the firm is currently studying how it 

can redevelop the site while preserving 

elements of the 4,600-square-foot 

building, which was cordoned off and 

put under 24-hour security after it was 

condemned in September. 

The two-story, 120-year-old 

building fronts Reynolds Street and 

is book-ended by the Common and 

the former parking lot of the old Belk 

department store. Its south end abuts 

841 Broad St., a Sprint Food Storesowned 

building that housed its Metro 

Market convenience store until it closed 

in early 2018. 

Azalea’s initial plan was to renovate 

840 Reynolds as a pub for Riverwatch 

Brewery. The plan fell through after 

Azalea’s contractors discovered renovation 

work could trigger a collapse. 

“When we determined it was just in 

much worse shape than we thought, 

the first thing we did was go to the city 

and tell them we thought the building 

was a public-safety hazard, and they 

agreed,” said May, whose firm acquired 

the property from the estate of Augusta 

businessman Julian Osbon in 2016. 

May said it’s possible parts of the 

rectangular-shaped structure could 

be incorporated into a multi-family 

project Azalea is pursuing on adjacent 

lots at the corner of Ninth and Reynolds 

streets, the former site of the Augusta 

Police Department. 

The Great Depression-era police 

building – which was severely damaged 

and had no roof when an Azaleaaffiliated 

entity purchased it in 2016 

– was demolished in early 2017. 

Azalea, which is owned by the 

children of former Augusta Chronicle 

owner William S. Morris III, previously 

had plans to build a Marriott-branded 

hotel on the old police station site. May 

said the firm has since pivoted to a 

multi-family concept because demand 

for downtown apartments is greater 

than hotel rooms. 

He said the company’s owners – all 

native Augustans – are committed to 

historic preservation and are evaluating 

their options for 840 Reynolds and the 

adjacent vacant lots. 

“We don’t have a firm plan yet,” May 

said. “It could be something completely 

different than what we originally had in 

mind.” 

He said making the old Trunk 

Factory building a component of a 

new development – similar to the way 

city officials incorporated the former 

Harrison family warehouse into the 

Augusta Convention Center five years 

ago – could make partial restoration 

financially feasible. 

But rehabilitating the condemned 

building in its current condition as a 

stand-alone development would be a 

long-term money loser based on current 

Augusta lease rates, May said. 

Historic preservationists and developers 

often clash, but May describes 

discussions regarding the Trunk 

Factory building as a “cordial process.” 

“All of these groups have been great 

to work with,” May said. “I compliment 

the folks we’ve worked with on 

this. They have been very open and 

accommodating.” 

Two decades into its resurgence, 

downtown Augusta finds itself at an 

odd juncture. 

Public officials, developers and 

the general public universally agree 

increasing the number of people living 

downtown is the linchpin to boosting 

commerce and revitalization in the 

urban core. 

But the supply of downtown residential 

units is still below the demand, as 

evidenced by the Augusta Downtown 

Development Authority’s estimated 

98% occupancy rate for apartments in 

the central business district. 

Property owners, developers 

and commercial real estate brokers 

overwhelmingly agree many young 

professionals being drawn to Augusta’s 

military-fueled cybersecurity industry 

yearn for urban living. 

But they are wary of gambling on 

future employment projections, given 

the time and expense of rehabilitating 

historic buildings into office, business 

and apartment spaces – especially in a 

low-rate atmosphere. 

Economic development officials 

and business leaders acknowledge the 

buying and selling of downtown real 

estate is on a steep upward trajectory. 

But only a handful of transactions 

have yielded new developments. And 

the central business district’s inventory 

of vacant space, which ranges from 

move-in ready to the severely dilapidated, 

exceeds 1 million square feet – a 

space roughly the size of Augusta Mall. 

THE ILLUSIVE TIPPING POINT 

Is the wait for downtown Augusta’s 

boom getting in the way of the boom? 

Many of downtown’s long-vacant 

historic properties sit idle, even as 

plans are being drawn up for newlyconstructed 

office, retail and residential 

buildings, such as Ivey Development’s 


An artist rendering depicts fully renovated buildings at the 

northwest corner of Ninth and Telfair streets. All properties 

depicted are for sale and 90 percent vacant. [SPECIAL/ 

BLANCHARD & CALHOUN COMMERCIAL CORP.] 

155-unit Millhouse Station, Azalea 

Investments’ proposed multi-family 

midrise and the on-again off-again 

Riverfront at the Depot mixed-use 

complex. 

There appears to be no firm date on 

the economic tipping point that will 

coax property owners and developers 

into rehabilitating historic buildings. 

But the floodgates of preservation 

activity likely won’t open until demand 

for space – particularly residential – 

starts pushing Augusta’s rental rates 

toward parity with other Southeastern 

markets. 

“I am happy that housing costs are 

very low in Augusta – it helps many 

people,” Boardman says. “But, it comes 

at a price – fewer new developments, 

fewer higher risk developments, fewer 

housing choices.” 

King, the architect, said he understands 

the conundrum owners and 

investors face on historic renovation 

projects. Until the stars align, he 

believes the slow-but-steady growth 

that has typified redevelopment activity 

in the city’s urban core during the 

past several years will persist. 

Unless someone is willing to take a 

The orange glow of the setting sun is reflected off the Lamar Building, right, and the Marion 

building, left, in downtown Augusta. Bringing the old buildings up to modern codes is too costly 

for many investors at current lease rates. [FILE/THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE] 

major leap of faith. 

“I think a few people own a lot of 

the buildings downtown and they’re 

waiting for the right tenant with big 

enough pockets to say, ’I’ll pay for XYZ 

renovation to occur,’ ” he said. “And 

maybe those tenants are waiting for 

the population density of downtown 

to grow up, which is waiting on the 

apartments to get more people living 

downtown. 

“You get to a certain number, and 

that sparks the need for a grocery 

store,” King says. “In my opinion, you 

hit that number and the new growth 

will begin to get exponential.” 


G. Lloyd Preacher’s architectural 

career was launched in 1911 

after winning a competition 

to design the Augusta Fire 

Department headquarters, 

a building that now holds 

apartments and The Marbury 

Center meeting hall. 

[FILE/THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE] 



Augusta’s 

ARCHITECT 

Augusta was very much an architectural 

blank slate in the early 20th 

century. 

Much of the city center had been 

destroyed by the Great Fire of 1916. Wide 

swaths of the countryside were opening up 

for development. And economic prosperity 

was ushering in the decade that would come 

to be known as the Roaring Twenties. 

It was during this era that one of the most 

famous architects to ever work in Augusta – 

G. Lloyd Preacher – would make a mark that 

can still be seen today. 

The creative force behind hundreds of 

buildings throughout the Southeast cut his 

teeth in Augusta by working on such structures 

as the Imperial Theatre, the Marion 

Building and the Houghton School. 

Noted local historian Ed Cashin wrote 

in his book, “The Story of Augusta,” that 

Preacher “more than anyone else left his 

mark on modern Augusta.” 

Preacher was born 60 miles southeast 

of Augusta in the Allendale County town 

of Fairfax, S.C. He moved to Augusta to 

work as a draftsman at Lombard Iron Works 

shortly after graduating with an engineering 

degree from Clemson College in 1904. 

Marrying a local girl, Fannie McDaniel, in 

1905 would help keep Preacher in Augusta 

for the next 15 years, resulting in the creation 

of some of the city’s most recognizable 

buildings. 

He was working as a civil engineer in 1909 

when he won the contest to design the city’s 

fire department headquarters on the 1200 

block of Broad Street. The three-story building 

now houses apartment units on the upper 

floors and the Marbury Center event space at 

the ground level. 

Preacher followed up the success by designing 

Harlem, Ga.’s Masonic Lodge building in 

1911 and by collaborating with W.L. Stoddart 

on downtown Augusta’s Marion Building (constructed 

as the Chronicle Building in 1912) and 

GEOFFREY LLOYD PREACHER 

Born: May 11, 1882; Fairfax, S.C. 

Died: June 17, 1972; Atlanta 

Alma mater: Clemson University (then Clemson College), 

engineering and architecture 

Family: Wife, Fannie; sons, Geoffrey Jr. and Jack 

Years active: 1904-1954 

Notable Augusta buildings: 

• Partridge Inn (first expansion), 1907 

• Marbury Center (originally Augusta Fire Department headquarters), 1909 

• Marion Building (originally the Chronicle Building), 1912* 

• Lamar Building (originally the Empire Life Insurance Building), 1913* 

• James Hotel (originally the Plaza Hotel), 1914** 

• University Hospital, 1915** 

• Modjeska Theater, 1916 

• Heritage Academy (originally the Houghton School), 1916 

• Cobb House (originally the Shirley Hotel), 1916 

• News Building (originally the Augusta Herald building), 1917 

• Imperial Theatre, 1917 

• Tubman Education Center (originally Tubman High School), 1918 

• Rialto Theater, 1918** 

• Lenox Theater, 1921** 

• Richmond Summit (originally the Richmond Hotel), 1923 

* Co-designed 

** Demolished 

Source: Staff research 


The G. Lloyd Preacher-designed Houghton School opened in 1916 when the previous school named for Augusta businessman John W. 

Houghton was destroyed by Augusta’s great fire. The building now houses the Heritage Academy private school. [FILE/THE AUGUSTA 

CHRONICLE] 

the Lamar Building (built as the Empire 

Life Insurance Building in 1913). The 

latter would hold the title of the city’s 

tallest structure for more than a halfcentury. 

After being commissioned to 

design University Hospital and the 

Lincoln County Courthouse, both in 

1915, Preacher embarked on a string 

of theater projects in downtown 

Augusta, including the Modjeska in 

1916, the Imperial in 1917 (originally 

the Wells Theater) and the Lenox in 

1921. The Lenox – condemned and 

demolished in 1978 – was regarded as 

one of the finest black movie theaters 

in the segregation-era South. 

Other notable projects from this 

period include the Cobb House (originally 

the Shirley Hotel), the Richmond 

Summit (built as the Richmond 

Hotel) and numerous private homes 

in the Summerville neighborhood. 

Influenced by the Chicago school 

of architecture, Preacher’s commercial 

buildings often relied on 

elaborate ornamentation and lightcolored 

brick to soften sharp edges. 

By the early 1920s, Atlanta had 

The Chronicle Building was constructed 

in 1914 and was gutted by the Great 

Fire of 1916. It was renamed the Marion 

Building when it reopened in 1922. 

[SPECIAL] 

become such a steady source of 

work that Preacher decided to live 

there full time. His notable downtown 

Atlanta buildings include the 

Standard Building (1923), the Henry 

Grady Hotel (1924) and the building 

considered his magnum opus, the 

Atlanta City Hall (1930), which is 

notable for its blend of Art Deco and 

Gothic Revival styles. 

Preacher was at the height of his fame 

when he decided to close his architecture 

firm in 1934 to take a government 

job. He wouldn’t resume his practice for 

more than a decade and never designed 

another building in Augusta. 

Speaking to a local civic group 

during his later years, The Chronicle 

reported that Preacher said: “Augusta’s 

future, from both business and 

a resort standpoint, appears to me 

as brighter than probably any city in 

the South if the citizens will awake to 

their opportunities.” 

Many of the more than 400 buildings 

in seven states that Preacher 

designed during his career are still 

standing, and most are listed on the 

National Register of Historic Places, 

including Augusta’s Lamar Building 

and Tubman High School. But some 

structures, sadly, have been lost to 

time, including Augusta’s Plaza Hotel 

(demolished in 1991), Atlanta’s Henry 

Grady Hotel (1972) and the Soreno 

Hotel in St. Petersburg, Fla. (1992). 

Preacher died in Atlanta in 1972 at 

age 90. 


BACK TO 

BANKING 

Historic renovation will return old bank to former glory 

ABOVE: Philip Wahl, president of Security Federal Bank, stands in the 1920s-era building that will become the bank’s new Augusta office. 

[MICHAEL HOLAHAN/THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE] 



TOP: Security Federal Bank is turning 1109 Broad St. into its new 

downtown Augusta office. 

MIDDLE: Built by Georgia Railroad Bank as its “Uptown Branch” in 1924, 

the building spent nearly three decades as the offices for the Augusta 

Genealogical Society. 

BOTTOM: The interior of 1109 Broad St. does not look much different 

than it did in the early 1990s when it was last used as a bank branch. 

[PHOTOS BY MICHAEL HOLAHAN/THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE] 

Security Federal Bank is renovating 

1109 Broad St. into its new downtown 

Augusta office. 

Of all the things the Aiken-based 

company must do before moving into the 

property this year, the one thing it doesn’t 

have to worry about is making the 96-yearold 

building “look” like a bank. 

It already does. 

The 4,000-square-foot building was 

constructed in 1924 as the “Uptown Branch” 

of the former Georgia Railroad Bank. It was 

considered Augusta’s first bank “branch,” 

and was designed as an architectural miniature 

of the main Georgia Railroad headquarters 

building that once sat at 701 Broad St. 

First Union, which acquired Georgia Railroad 

in the 1980s, sold the branch office to 

the Augusta Genealogical Society in 1993. 

Nearly three decades of occupation by the 

building’s previous owner has done nothing 

to change the bank-like appearance; the 

society simply stored its library of documents 

around the building’s furniture and 

fixtures. 

The cashier cages became individual study 

centers. The glass stand where customers 

once filled out deposit slips was used as 

a visitor sign-in station. The massive safe 

became a repository for rare documents. 

Security Federal President Phil Wahl, 

whose current downtown office is in the 

Augusta Riverfront Center building, set the 

ball in motion one day while walking by the 

property. 

“I stopped in and said, ‘Hey, can I take a 

look at the building?’ ” he recalled, noticing 

the ground-floor lobby still had its teller line, 

glass partitions and a working vault. “I went 

back to my board and said, ‘Wouldn’t it be 

great to have an office on Broad Street?’ ” 

A few negotiations and $900,000 later, 

Security Federal had its building on Broad. 

When it came time to plan the renovation, 

the bank chose to take the more “historic 

preservation” route. Though more complicated 

from a regulatory standpoint, the process 

would ensure the building was restored 

to its former glory and get the bank valuable 

tax credits to offset its investment, which 

likely will exceed $1 million. The restoration/ 

renovation is being overseen by Augusta- 


ased architecture firm Cheatham 

Fletcher Scott. 

Making the building look like it 

did in the 1920s will require workers 

to remove the drop ceiling that 

was installed during the late 1940s. 

Like nearly all buildings of the era, 

the Georgia Railroad branch was built 

without air conditioning, so a false 

ceiling had to be created to hide ductwork 

and mechanical components. 

Wahl said the vent covers on the 

drop ceiling are the same style as those 

used in the Miller Theater, which was 

built around the same time that the 

bank was getting air-conditioning. 

Removing the false ceiling will not 

only add 10 feet of vertical space to the 

interior, it will expose the top arches 

of the building’s original windows, 

which are visible only to the outside. 

The bank’s vault will be restored and 

will have safe-deposit boxes added. 

The drive-through teller lane (a feature 

that was added on long after the 

bank first opened) will be configured 

into two lanes with tellers handling 

transactions through video screens 

and pneumatic tubes. The upstairs 

space will be converted into offices 

and a large conference room. 

“It’s going to be really neat once it’s 

all done,” Wahl said. “Our employees 

are excited about it. I’m excited about 

it.” 

By today’s standards, there isn’t 

much difference between Broad 

Street’s upper and lower ends. But in 

the early 20th century, the “uptown” 

section of the city needed some polish. 

According to a story in the Jan. 5, 

1925, edition of The Augusta Chronicle 

about the branch office’s opening: 

“The new building is one of the most 

beautiful in the entire city and replaces 

a number of old dilapidated wooden 

buildings or shacks which were an 

eyesore to that section...Just a few 

years ago practically the entire north 

side of this block was composed of 

wooden structures, and now almost all 

of these are gone.” 

The story said the branch would 

be filling “a long felt want from the 

standpoint of giving banking facilities 

to the business section of Broad which 

The interior of 1109 Broad St. does not look much different than it did in the early 

1990s when it was last used as a bank branch. [MICHAEL HOLAHAN/THE AUGUSTA 

CHRONICLE] 

A drop ceiling hangs from the original roof of the Georgia Railroad Bank’s Uptown 

Branch building. It will be removed by Security Federal Bank as part of a historic 

restoration project to turn the building into its new downtown office. [MICHAEL 

HOLAHAN/THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE] 

The old safe from the original bank will be reused when Security Federal Bank 

completes its historic renovation of the 1924 building. [MICHAEL HOLAHAN/THE 



A decades-old security camera is one of several old bank 

remnants that was left in the building after 1109 Broad St. was 

sold to the Augusta Genealogical Society in the early 1990s. 

[MICHAEL HOLAHAN/THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE] 

is growing with marvelous rapidity.” 

The branch was designed by Augusta architecture firm 

Scroggs and Ewing, and was built by C.H. Van Ormer, 

a contractor whose other notable projects included J.B. 

White’s Broad Street department store, Curtis Baptist 

Church, a Paine College dormitory and a warehouse for 

Atlantic Milling Co. 

The future branch will be one of two for Security 

Federal in Augusta’s urban core. In late 2019 it opened a 

branch near Augusta’s medical district at 1607 Walton 

Way, in office space previously occupied by Georgia 

Power. 

Like the Walton Way branch, the downtown office is 

designed to strengthen the bank’s presence in Augusta’s 

urban region; Security Federal’s first foray into the Georgia 

side of the market was in suburban Columbia County. 

Wahl, whose 30-year banking career has been spent 

almost entirely in Augusta, doesn’t deny the gravitas that 

a Broad Street address brings the institution. 

“We really feel it will demonstrate our commitment to 

the community,” he said. “And we think we can be a very 

significant contributor to the revitalization of downtown.” 

As for the importance of planting a flag downtown, 

Wahl said Security Federal Chairman Tim Simmons may 

have summed it up best during a recent top-to-bottom 

tour of the building. 

“We’re standing there on the roof, looking out over 

the street, and he turns to me and says, ‘You know, I 

wouldn’t do business with a bank in Augusta that didn’t 

have a branch on Broad Street.”

15 Properties 

Potential 

with 

1 

Mt. Auburn St. 

3 

Gardner St. 

Greene St. 

AUGUSTA 

5 

28 

Broad St. 

1. Weed School 

2403 Mount Auburn St. 

• Built in 1936 as an 

elementary school for 

African-American children; 

closed in mid-2000s; named 

after the Rev. Edwin Weed 

• Under contract for purchase; 

has redevelopment 

potential as multi-family 

housing 

Johns Rd. 

Central Ave. 

Kissingbower Rd. 

2 

Heard Ave. 

Walton Way 

4 

Baker Ave. 

Central Ave. 

Wrightsboro Rd. 

15th St. 

R.A. De 

2. Old Fire Station No. 7 

2163 Central Ave. 

• Spanish colonial revival-style 

fire station operated 

from 1915 to 2003; a historic 

landmark in Summerville 

neighborhood 

• City-owned but unoccupied; 

has redevelopment potential 

as a restaurant, office or 

community center 

3. Cumming Grove Baptist Church 

2289 Gardner St. 

• Founded by African-Americans 

in the 1840s in the Sand 

Hills neighborhood; considered 

the oldest church in the city’s 

Hill section 

• Property is owned by the 

congregation but faces 

pressure from encroaching 

development 

5. Martha Lester School 

1688 Broad St. 

• Completed in 1934 along the 

historic Augusta Canal, the 

building was one of several 

properties the school board 

sold during a 2008 auction 

• Was saved from further 

deterioration with the addition 

of a new roof in 2012; is vacant 

and currently listed for sale 

6. John Strother Old Folks Home 

1243 Laney-Walker Boulevard 

• Built as a dwelling in 1916, the 

American Foursquare-style 

property operated as an 

elderly home in the late 1970s 

and early 1980s; now privately 

owned and in dilapidated 

condition 

• Has potential to complement 

Laney-Walker neighborhood 

revitalization as new residential, commercial or retail 

8. Gre 

1235 G 

• Rom 

buildi 

1906 

tion’s 

close 

declin 

• The 

the no 

has li 

renov 

9. 110 

1154- 

• Two 

store 

multi 

owne 

hotel 

• The 

demo 

comp 

plans 

advoc 

4. Lamar Elementary School 

970 Baker Ave. 

• Constructed in 1933 in 

the Art Moderne style, the 

school operated until the 

2012 opening of the merged 

Lamar-Milledge Elementary; 

considered surplus school 

board property 

• Building is threatened 

by plans for new stadium 

at adjacent Academy of 

Richmond County 

7. St. Benedict Orphanage and Boarding School 

1220 12th St. 

• The dilapidated building was 

constructed as a boarding 

school for African-American 

children by the Franciscan 

sisters of St. Benedict Convent 

in 1901; is the progenitor of 

Immaculate Conception School 

• Privately owned property has 

potential for renovation into 

market-rate housing for seniors 

or students 

10. So 

937 El 

• Built 

in the 

phone 

dilapi 

struc 

leaky 

• With 

White 

two-s 

redev 

Sources: Historic Augusta Inc.; Augusta Chronicle research maps4news.com/©HERE 


15th St. 

5 

R.A. Dent Blvd 

Broad St. 

Wrightsboro Rd. 

Savannah River 

6 

7 

13th St. 

12th St. 

8 

Georgia Ave. 

9 

River 

Golf Club 

Greene St. 

11 

10 

James Brown Blvd. 

12 

Laney Walker Blvd. 

SOUTH CAROLINA 

GEORGIA 

7th St. 

Walton Way 

13 

14 

15 

¼ mile 

78 

11. Old Fire Station No. 2 

902 James Brown Blvd. 

• One of the first two city-built 

fire stations in the early 1890s; 

now an unused building in 

Dyess Park 

• A recent inspection showed 

the building is in worse shape 

than previously thought; park 

users have for years wanted 

city officials to replace the 

structure with a modern community center 

12. Ninth Street Commercial Block 

500 block of James Brown 

Boulevard 

• Row of late 19th and early 

20th century buildings on the 

block’s northwest side are 

vacant and in varying degrees 

of deterioration 

• The multi-story structures 

north of the Damiano building 

are being marketed for 

redevelopment as apartments with ground-floor commercial space 

8. Greene Street Presbyterian 


• Romanesque Revival-style 

building was constructed in 

1906 to replace the congregation’s 

original 1879 building; 

closed in 2008 after years of 

declining church membership 

• The building’s current owner, 

the nonprofit GAP Ministries, 

has limited maintenance and 

renovation funds 

9. 1100 Broad Commercial Block 

1154-60 Broad St. 

• Two turn-of-the-century 

storefronts are part of a 

multi-parcel tract property 

owned by a South Carolina 

hotel developer 

• The buildings could be 

demolished as part of the 

company’s redevelopment 

plans; preservationists 

advocate incorporating the structures into any future construction 

13. Denning House 

905 7th St. 

• As part of a block of historic 

homes along the Augusta 

Canal’s “third level” zone, 

the dilapidated and privately 

owned property at the corner 

of Seventh and Taylor streets 

dates back to the 1860s 

• Renovation could serve as an 

anchor for revitalization in the 

surrounding neighborhood 

14. Old First Baptist Church 


• Built in 1902 in the Beaux 

Arts-style on the site of the 

first Southern Baptist Convention, 

the iconic building has 

seen increasingly infrequent 

use since the church relocated 

to west Augusta in 1975 

• Property’s immense size 

makes routine maintenance 

costly; mixed-use potential exists for a well-capitalized owner 

10. Southern Bell Exchange Building 

937 Ellis St. 

• Built in 1902 and last occupied 

in the 1980s, the former 

phone company office is in 

dilapidated condition and is 

structurally threatened by a 

leaky roof 

• With its proximity to the J.B. 

White’s mixed-use building, the 

two-story structure could be 

redeveloped into office or residential space 

15. Woolworth Building 

802 Broad St. 

• Built in 1915, the former dime 

store expanded over the years 

to its present footprint in 1949; 

the Art Deco-style building - 

vacant since 1991 - was the 

site of a 1960 sit-in demonstration 

by Paine College students 

• Deferred maintenance has 

resulted in interior and exterior 

damage; its current owner, a 

South Carolina restaurateur, intends to renovate the building 

GANNETT 


PRESERVATION continued from 12 

Historic preservation was now directly, 

positively, impacting the very center of 

downtown. 

The state tax credits were substantially 

expanded in 2015, helping to enable such 

large projects such as the Miller Theater 

rehabilitation further revitalizing downtown 

Augusta. 

The expanded state credits also were 

now available, for the first time, for use on 

private residences. Locally, the impact of 

this change has been seen in the certified 

historic rehabilitation of a limited number 

of homes in the Summerville Historic 

District. 

Currently, most historic preservation 

activity appears to be occurring in Augusta’s 

National Register Historic Districts 

that are also overlaid by local historic districts 

with preservation design guidelines: 

Olde Town, Downtown, and Summerville. 

The design guidelines give assurance to a 

developer or homeowner making a substantial 

investment in a tax credit project 

that the surrounding properties will retain 

their historic character and continue to 

support the value of the property receiving 

the investment. 

Tax reforms of 2017 again reduced the 

attraction of the federal tax credits by 

extending the period over which they can 

be captured, diluting their value. Additionally, 

tax court rulings have made it 

more difficult to distribute the benefits 

of the tax credits to indirect investors in 

tax credit projects, dissuading investor 

participation. 

Somewhat offsetting the changes in 

the value of the federal credit has been the 

establishment of federally tax-advantaged 

Opportunity Zones. In Augusta, the Opportunity 

Zones overlap most downtown historic 

districts. Some downtown tax credit projects 

also are attracting Opportunity Zone funding. 

The full impact of these Opportunity 

Zone funds in Augusta’s historic preservation 

districts is just now materializing. 

Still, significant tax credit projects are 

occurring in Augusta, such as TaxSlayer’s 

rehab of the former YMCA building at 

945 Broad St., across from the previously 

rehabbed J.B. White’s Building. This 

is a classic example of how one historic 

preservation-assisted development can 

lead to neighboring investments – in this 

case, a very substantial one. 

Indeed, the 900 block of Broad has 

seen heavy investment since the White’s 

project was completed, including the 

expansion of the Wier-Stewart firm into 

the redeveloped 980 Broad St. building, 

the new Loop Recruiting building at 972 

Broad and the American Journeyman store 

project at 970 Broad. 

Some of these investments, and many 

others in Augusta, wouldn’t have been 

possible without the incentives afforded by 

federal and state historic tax credits. Both 

programs are worthy of our preservation. 

The author is president and general 

manager of Rex Property & Land LLC , a 

local redevelopment company focusing on 

Augusta's historic properties. He was the 

2018 recipient of the Georgia Cities Foundation 

Renaissance Award. 

A crowd passes through security screening at Diana Ross’ 2018 concert the Bell Auditorium in downtown Augusta. Historic preservationists see a direct link 

between today’s vibrant downtown economy and tax-assisted building renovation efforts that began more than four decades ago. [FILE/THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE] 


Lost to 

Time By 

Augusta said 

goodbye to many 

historic structures 

over the years 

DAMON CLINE 

Not every building deemed 

historically or architecturally 

significant in Augusta gets 

saved. 

History has shown many 

examples where cultural treasures have met 

their ends at the hands of neglect, natural 

disaster, lack of appreciation and the pursuit of 

“progress.” 

A historic building’s significance is often 

not recognized until it is too late, said Erick 

Montgomery, executive director of Historic 

Augusta Inc. 

Without intervention from professional 

preservationists and community volunteers, 

historic structures can disappear forever. 

Montgomery cites Historic Augusta’s 

restoration of the C.T. Walker home at 1011 

Laney-Walker Blvd. as an example of saving 

a property that the community had forgotten. 

The home, which belonged to the Rev. Charles 

T. Walker, was in horrific shape when the nonprofit 

acquired it in 2016. 

The vacant two-story structure was cluttered 

with years of trash and debris from the 

homeless, vandals and criminals using it for 

illicit activities. The home had been stripped of 

its fixtures, including its electrical wiring. 


For a property once home to one of 

Augusta’s most famous African-American 

figures – the founder of Tabernacle Baptist 

Church – it was amazing how close the home 

came to being damaged beyond repair. 

“Most people would look at the C.T. Walker 

house and say, ‘Oh, it’s just an ordinary little 

house,’” Montgomery said. “But you have to 

marry up the history.” 

The house served as Walker’s residence in 

Augusta from about 1905 until his death in 

1921 when the street was known as Gwinnett 

Street. Walker’s widow, Violet Q. Franklin 

Walker, remained there until her death in 

1928, at which time the home began to pass 

through a series of heirs. 

Walker gained worldwide recognition as 

the “Black Spurgeon,” a reference to British 

evangelist Charles Haddon Spurgeon, whose 

fame at the time was equal to Billy Graham’s 

in the second half of the 20th century. 

Although Historic Augusta today raises 

awareness for all types of historically significant 

structures in the city, the organization 

primarily focused on antebellum structures 

following its founding in 1965. The narrow 

focus resulted in many late 19th and early 20th 

century buildings getting demolished during 

the city’s “urban renewal” efforts between the 

1960s and 1980s. 

Some of the greatest losses were in the area 

once known as Barrett Plaza, a public square 

that greeted visitors arriving by train at Union 

Station, a Spanish Renaissance-styled building 

erected in 1902. The station was closed in 

1968 and demolished in 1972. The site is now 

occupied by the U.S. Postal Service’s downtown 

Augusta office. 

While many today would consider the 

building’s demolition a travesty, leaders of the 

era considered the outdated buildings anachronistic 

symbols not befitting a modern city 

ABOVE: Built in the 1880s 

in the Romanesque and 

Gothic styles, the old 

Federal Building at Greene 

and Ninth streets was 

demolished to make way 

for the Augusta Public 

Library branch in the late 

1970s. The library has 

since been converted 

to the Augusta Judicial 

Circuit’s public defender 

office. [SPECIAL] 

OPPOSITE: Built in 1902, 

Augusta’s Union Station 

welcomed countless 

numbers of locals and 

visiting guests arriving 

by train. The station, 

near the corner of Eighth 

and Walker streets, was 

demolished in 1972 [FILE/ 



The James Hotel, which 

opened in 1917 as the 

Plaza Hotel, was popular 

with train travelers 

arriving and departing 

through the nearby 

Union Station at Walker 

Street. The building 

fell into disrepair in 

the 1960s as passenger 

train traffic declined. 

It was demolished in 

1991. [FILE/THE AUGUSTA 

CHRONICLE] 

on the move. Even The Augusta Chronicle 

noted in 1970 that “the deteriorating railroad 

station stands as an unsightly reminder of the 

past.” 

Another focal point of the once-grand 

Barrett Plaza was The Plaza Hotel, which 

was built in 1917 and renamed the James 

Hotel in the 1960s. It was demolished in 

1991. The land on which it sat is now the U.S. 

Bankruptcy Court. 

The only original building still standing 

at the plaza is the U.S. Post Office and 

Courthouse Building, a Renaissance Revivalstyled 

building now used exclusively by 

the U.S. District Court Southern District of 

Georgia. The plaza’s landscaping, fountain 

and its statue honoring Patrick Walsh – an 

Augusta Chronicle editor and early civil 

rights advocate – are still there, but a security 

fence around the federal buildings shields 

the space from the public. 

Other failures in preservation during the 

renewal era include the demolition of the old 

Federal Building at the corner of Ninth and 

Greene streets. The intricate 19th century 

building, designed in Romanesque and Gothic 

styles, once housed the city post office and, 

for a time, its municipal offices. 

The old Federal Building was razed to make 

way for the institutionally drab Augusta 

Public Library branch in the late 1970s. The 

marble-clad former library building now 

houses the Augusta Judicial Circuit’s public 

defender’s office. 


This January 2016 photo shows the demolition in progress at the 

old John S. Davidson School building at the corner of 11th and 

Telfair streets. The building was allowed to fall into disrepair after 

the John S. Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School moved to a new 

complex on 12th Street. [FILE/THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE] 

Many historic buildings were burned in the Great Fire of 

1916, but several others were destroyed by other fires over 

the years, including North Augusta’s Hampton Terrace 

Resort, which was one of the largest hotels during the 

region’s heyday as a turn-of-the-century winter haven. A 

New Year’s Eve fire in 1916 destroyed the elegant hotel just 

13 years after it opened. 

A 2008 fire at the Southern Milling Co. brought down 

the historic building along the Augusta Canal’s third level. 

The mill, built in 1854 as the Crescent Flour Mill, was one 

of the first industries to make use of the canal. 

More recently, a fire at Pullman Hall on May 14 gutted 

the structure that was built in the early 1850s as a railroad 

depot for an Augusta-Waynesboro route. 

Some owners who don’t want the expense of rehabilitating 

a historic building according to city guidelines and 

standards will simply allow their buildings to fall down so 

they can start from scratch, something that preservationists 

call “demolition by neglect.” 

One high profile example occurred in 2003 when the roof 

of 602 Broad St. collapsed, causing the rest of the threestory 

building to be demolished. The building, formerly 

the Augusta Hotel, was owned by Augusta businessman 


The Forrest Hills-Ricker Hotel was built on one of the 

highest points of the Summerville neighborhood in 1927 

as a resort for winter visitors. The decline in tourism in 

the 1930s saw the building become an Army hospital. It 

operated as Oliver General Hospital from 1950 to 1986. 

The building was demolished in 1988. [SPECIAL] 

Tim Shelnut, who blamed the collapse on the city Historic 

Preservation Commission’s continual rejection of his plans to 

renovate the property into an upscale restaurant. 

Some old buildings are torn down simply because they are 

no longer usable and take up valuable space. Prime examples of 

that can be found on Augusta University’s downtown Health 

Sciences Campus, where buildings such as the old University 

Hospital and the Wilhenford Hospital for Children were razed 

to make room for modern structures. 


Trying to bring old buildings up to modern standards 

makes saving some buildings cost-prohibitive. Paine 

College quietly razed the childhood home of noted author 

and alumni Frank G. Yerby in 2005 after learning the building 

had numerous structural problems as well as asbestos 

and lead paint. 

After public outcry, the college re-constructed an exact 

replica of the home to honor the acclaimed writer whose works 

included “The Foxes of Harrow” and “Dahomean.” 

A building doesn’t necessarily have to be a century old 

for it to have cultural significance. A good example is the 

1950s-era Pontiac Master Auto Service Building at 1027 

Telfair St. The building, with its curved facade and windows, 

was a prime example of mid-century automotive 

industry architecture before it was torn down in June 2019 

despite opposition from preservationists. 

For an old structure to survive, it must have an owner 

with vision and the capital to preserve it. Unfortunately, 

such a combination is difficult to find, which is why historic 

structures such as the old John S. Davidson School building 

on Telfair Street and the Forrest Hills-Ricker Hotel in 

Summerville were reduced to rubble. 



An undated photo shows the former Lam Brother’s Food Store at 1026 D’Antignac St. The mid-19th century structure, which 

had residential units upstairs, sat vacant for years and was demolished in 2008 after the body of a homicide victim was found 

inside a year earlier. [SPECIAL] 

ABOVE: The former 

Hampton Terrace Resort 

in North Augusta, one of 

the most elegant of the 

region’s winter resorts, 

was destroyed by fire 

just 13 years after its 

1903 grand opening. The 

former site of the hotel 

on Carolina Avenue is 

now occupied by homes. 

[SPECIAL] 

LEFT: The Wilhenford 

Hospital for Children, a 

facility considered the 

South’s first children’s 

hospital when it opened 

in 1910 on the presentday 

Augusta University 

medical campus, 

operated until 1941. The 

building was used for 

other purposes before 

its 1959 demolition. 

[SPECIAL] 

The Immaculate Conception Academy building at 1016 Laney-Walker Blvd., built in 1913 by the African American Missionary 

Fathers of the Catholic Church, was demolished by the Catholic Diocese of Savannah in 2012 despite objection from 

preservationists. The property is now a vacant lot. [SPECIAL] 


TOP: Firefighters work to 

extinguish the May 14, 2019, fire 

that destroyed most of Pullman 

Hall, a building constructed in 

the early 1850s as a railroad 

depot for the Augusta- 

Waynesboro route. The building 

had served as a banquet hall in 

recent years. 

MIDDLE: The defunct Southern 

Milling Co., shown here in this 

2006 file photo, was destroyed 

by fire in 2008. The mill was built 

in 1854 along the Augusta Canal 

and was known as the Crescent 

Flour Mill. [FILE PHOTOS/THE 


BOTTOM: The former Pontiac 

Master Auto Service Building 

at 1027 Telfair St. was a prime 

example of mid-century 

architecture in downtown 

Augusta. Recognized by its 

curved facade and windows, 

the former car dealership 

was leased to an auto repair 

business until the building’s 

demolition in June 2019. 

[SPECIAL] 

Each year Historic Augusta publishes 

its “Endangered Properties” 

list to highlight buildings that are 

threatened by vacancy, neglect, 

encroachment or inappropriate 

alterations. However, a property’s 

inclusion on the list does not always 

save it from demise. 

Several listed properties, such as 

the Immaculate Conception Academy 

building at 1016 Laney-Walker Blvd., 

have been demolished despite the 

preservation group’s efforts to save 

them. 

Montgomery said the list at least 

makes city officials and the general 

public aware of historically significant 

structures that are in danger, in 

the hope that somebody can step in 

and save a building, as it did with the 

C.T. Walker home. 

“It takes an organization like 

Historic Augusta to make things 

happen,” Montgomery said. “We’re 

not always successful, but we try to 

do the right thing.” 


The difference between 

saving and razing old 

structures almost 

always comes down to 

the building’s owner. 

Owners who value the properties and 

take care of them tend to have buildings 

that hold up over time. Those 

who neglect the buildings consign the 

structures to the damaging forces of 

nature and – the worst case scenario – a 

demolition crew. 

Fortunately, Augusta’s urban core 

retains many culturally significant 

buildings from throughout the city’s 

history. Some of these buildings stood 

the test of time because they never 

stopped serving a purpose. Others were 

simply fortunate to have preservationminded 

owners. And some 

were just so endearing that 

locals stepped forward to fight 

for them. 

Here are a handful of historic 

structures that have hardly 

changed since the day they 

were built. 

ALWAYS 

there 

Many historic buildings 

in Augusta have stood 

the test of time 



GERTRUDE HERBERT 

INSTITUTE OF ART 

Address: 506 Telfair St. 

Constructed: 1818 

▲ 

History: The Federal-style home for 

Augusta Mayor and U.S. Senator Nicolas 

Ware was completed for the then-exorbitant 

sum of $40,000, which led to it earning 

the nickname “Ware’s Folly.” The home 

was a residence for three other prominent 

Augusta families until 1909. 

Olivia Herbert, a wealthy New Yorker who 

wintered in Augusta, purchased and renovated 

the mansion to provide a permanent 

home for the Augusta Art Club as well as a 

living memorial to her daughter, Gertrude 

Herbert Dunn, soon after her death. The 

building has been the Gertrude Herbert 

Institute of Art ever since. 

Ware’s Folly, home to the Gertrude Herbert 

Institute of Art. [SPECIAL/HISTORIC AUGUSTA 

INC.-JAMES R. LOCKHART] 


BUTT MEMORIAL BRIDGE 

Address: 15th Street and the 

Augusta Canal 


History: Dedicated to Augusta 

native Major Archibald 

Willingham Butt, a victim of the 

1912 Titanic disaster, the bridge 

features four pillars topped with 

bronze-banded globes placed 

over electric lights and four lions 

with plaques at each end. 

The bridge has been threatened 

twice: once during the 1970s when 

officials pondered draining the 

Augusta Canal and turning it into 

an expressway; and once during 

the early 1990s when state transportation 

officials proposed a new 

canal and railroad crossing using 

$15 million in federal funding. A 

well organized campaign featuring 

the unofficial slogan, “Save 

Our Butt,” successfully thwarted 

plans to remove the structure. 

▲ 

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 



History: Designed in 1807 by Robert Mills, the nationally known architect whose other works include the Washington 

Monument, Augusta’s First Presbyterian Church was built in the Classical style between 1809 and 1812. 

The church was significantly changed in the 1840s to incorporate Romanesque arched windows and doors and parapet 

walls. The building has remained in continuous use since its dedication and the church’s property has continued to 

expand. First Presbyterian’s most famous pastor was the Rev. Joseph R. Wilson, father of President Woodrow Wilson. 

▲ 



OLD GOVERNMENT HOUSE 



▲ 

History: One of the oldest standing buildings in Augusta, the 

Old Government House was the seat of local government 

until the city offices and courthouse were moved to Greene 

Street in 1821. The Federal-style building then became a 

private residence for several prominent families, including 

James Gregg, son of the founder of Graniteville Mills. 

The Junior League of Augusta purchased the home for use as 

a reception center from 1954 until the 1970s, when the property 

was given to Historic Augusta Inc. The city of Augusta 

purchased the building in 1987. The home is depicted on the 

city seal and flag. 

[SPECIAL] 

OLD MEDICAL COLLEGE 



History: Built for the Medical College of Georgia, 

the two-story structure was designed in the Greek 

Revival style with six massive fluted Doric columns. 

The site was deemed a National Historic Landmark 

for the role the school played in establishing the 

American Medical Association. 

The building served the medical school until it 

moved to a new campus in 1913. The property was 

taken over by the adjacent Academy of Richmond 

County and used as a vocational training center 

until 1926. A variety of organizations used the 

building as an event venue until it was acquired in 

1987 by the Medical College of Georgia Foundation, 

which restored it to its 19th century appearance. 

▲ 


AUGUSTA COTTON EXCHANGE 

Address: 32 8th St. 


History: Local cotton traders in the late 

▲ 

19th century decided to build an exchange 

building befitting the nation’ second-largest 

inland cotton market. The result was 

the three-story, Victorian-styled Augusta 

Cotton Exchange. 

More than 200 merchants used the building 

until the cotton industry declined in 

the early 20th century because of the boll 

weevil infestation and the introduction 

of synthetic fibers. The building closed in 

1964 and fell into disrepair. A 1988 restoration 

by an Aiken couple discovered the 

original blackboard with chalk markings 

intact. The property is now a branch office 

for South State Bank. 




▲ SACRED HEART CULTURAL CENTER 

Address: 1301 Greene St. 


History: One of the finest examples of Victorian brickwork 

in Georgia can be seen at the former Catholic 

church whose twin spires tower over downtown’s west 

end. Construction on the Romanesque- and Byzantinestyled 

church, with 15 distinctive styles of brickwork, 

began in 1897 and its first service was held in 1900. 

The National Register of Historic Places-listed building 

closed in 1971 due to declining membership and other factors. 

After 16 years of vacancy and vandalism, the building 

was reopened in 1987 as Sacred Heart Cultural Center with 

donations from the Peter S. Knox family. 


▲ SPRINGFIELD VILLAGE CHURCH 

Address: 114 12th St. 

Constructed: 1801 (original building); 1897 (new building) 

History: Augusta’s first Methodist Society built the wooden building in 1801. It is 

the oldest standing church building in Augusta and one of the oldest in Georgia. 

Springfield Baptist Church moved into the property in 1844 and constructed the 

new church building out of brick in 1897 in the late Victorian Gothic style. 

The church, a National Register of Historic Places-listed structure, is known for 

being one of the earliest independent black congregations in the United States as 

well as serving as the organizer of Morehouse College. 

[SPECIAL/HISTORIC AUGUSTA INC.-JAMES R. LOCKHART] 


▲ TABERNACLE BAPTIST CHURCH 

Address: 1223 Laney-Walker Blvd. 


History: A landmark structure in the historically black 

Laney-Walker neighborhood, Tabernacle Baptist Church 

settled on its present location after being organized 30 

years earlier by the renowned Rev. Charles T. Walker. 

The Italian Renaissance-inspired building with twin belfries 

boasts a first floor auditorium that can seat 2,000. 

The building underwent a $550,000 renovation in 2001. 

In a neighborhood of one- and two-story buildings, the 

massive church has a monumental presence. 

▲ BOYHOOD HOME OF WOODROW WILSON 

Address: 419 Seventh St. 


History: Built by First Presbyterian Church for its pastor, Joseph Ruggles Wilson, 

the home was occupied by the Wilson family until 1872, when Woodrow Wilson was 

14. The Classical Revival 2½-story home boasted modern conveniences such as running 

water and gas lighting. 

The property continued housing the church’s ministers until 1929. It passed through 

a number of owners before it was purchased in a 1991 auction by Historic Augusta, 

which spent a decade restoring the home to its 1860s appearance. The property 

was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2008. Tours are offered Thursdays 

through Saturdays. 


THE IMPERIAL THEATRE 

Address: 749 Broad St. 


History: Built as the Wells Theater in the Sullivanesque-style, the vaudeville venue 

changed its name to the Imperial following a change in ownership in 1918. A renovation 

in the 1930s added Art Deco styling to the building. 

Unlike Augusta’s other downtown theaters, such as the Rialto, the Grand, the Modjeska 

and the Miller, the 845-seat Imperial never had a prolonged period of closure and decay 

after suburban multiplex theaters siphoned business away. The century-old theater is in 

the midst of a $4 million renovation project that will create new bathrooms, new balcony 

seating, interior paint and plaster improvements and an elevator. 


OLD ACADEMY OF 

RICHMOND COUNTY 



History: Chartered in 1783, the 

Academy of Richmond County moved 

from its previous location on Bay 

Street to its new campus on what was 

then the city’s southern edge. Tudor 

Gothic details, including the building’s 

fortress-like battlements, were added 

in the 1850s. 

The academy moved to its presentday 

campus on Walton Way in 1929. 

The original building is still owned 

by the school’s board of trustees and 

has been used as a library, the city’s 

history museum and most recently as 

a tech incubator. 



▲ 

MEADOW GARDEN (GEORGE WALTON HOME) 

Address: 1320 Independence Drive 


History: The oldest documented house in Augusta and one of the oldest 

house museums in the state of Georgia, Meadow Garden was the residence 

of George Walton (1749–1804), one of Georgia’s three signers of the 

Declaration of Independence and later a governor of Georgia and a United 

States senator. 

Walton made Meadow Garden his home from 1791 until his death. He is 

buried at the Signers Monument on Greene Street. His heirs lived in the 

2½-story Sand Hills Cottage until the mid-1800s. The home, a registered 

National Historic Landmark, has been owned by Daughters of the American 

Revolution since 1900. Tours are available Tuesdays through Saturdays. 

[SPECIAL/ AUGUSTA CONVENTION & VISITORS BUREAU] 

▲ EZEKIEL HARRIS HOUSE 

Address: 1822 Broad St. 


History: Considered the finest 18th century house surviving in 

Georgia, the Ezekiel Harris House is a time portal into Federalist Eralife 

in Augusta. Built in 1797 for the tobacco magnate for which it is 

named, the two-story home sits on what used to be a 320-plus-acre 

tract in the former town of Harrisburg. 

The home, a rare example of the transition between the Georgian 

and Federal architecture styles, was fully restored in 1964 and listed 

on the National Register of Historic Places. The property is managed 

by the Augusta Museum of History and is open to the public on 

Saturdays and by appointment only on weekdays. 

[SPECIAL/ AUGUSTA CONVENTION & VISITORS BUREAU]] 


Nathan and Mackenzie Vick stand with their children, from left, Everett, 2, Grayson, 4, 

and Finley, 6 months, outside the Joseph Darling House in west Augusta. 


Living 

History 

in 

Local architect buys, preserves 

historic homestead in west Augusta 

Nathan and Mackenzie Vick stand in the kitchen of the Joseph Darling 

House, a home believed to have been built in the mid-1830s. 

Story by DAMON CLINE | Photos by MICHAEL HOLAHAN 

Nathan Vick was in the market for an older 

home, a fixer-upper the young architect 

could put “his stamp” on. 

“He’s always wanted to find a house to 

do work on,” says his wife, Mackenzie. 

What the couple never expected to find was a more 

than 170-year-old farmhouse hidden on a five-acre 

tract in the fringes of suburban west Augusta. 

“I was born and raised in Augusta,” said Vick, 38. 

“My wife has lived here since she was three years old. 

Neither one of us knew this place existed.” 


That place is officially known as the 

Joseph Darling House, a simple two-story 

cottage historians believe was constructed as 

early as 1834. 

According to a report prepared by Georgia 

Department of Natural Resources for the 

home’s listing on the National Register of 

Historic Places in 1991: “It can be fairly well 

assumed that Joseph Darling built this house 

on his newly acquired property in 1834-35... 

the features remaining within the home 

reflect workmanship from the 1830s.” 

Vick, a principal architect with the Christopher 

Booker & Associates architecture 

firm in downtown Augusta, has a passion for 

preservation – he’s worked on several historic 

rehabilitation projects and is a trustee 

for Historic Augusta Inc. 

He used his résumé to his advantage when 

he saw the home the first day it was listed for 

sale on Realtor.com. Within two days, the 

Vicks put in an offer. 

“There were talks about a developer trying 

to buy the property,” Vick said. “I made it 

a point to tell my Realtor, ‘Tell them I’m an 

architect. Tell them I’m into historic designs. 

Tell them we’re going to save the house.’ We 

think that kind of helped us out.” 

The property sits near the Columbia County 

line off Dennis Road – a street named for the 

Darling House’s previous owner. The bulk of 

Darling’s original 335-acre homestead is now 

covered by the West Hills and Sterling Heights 

subdivisions to the south, east and west, and 

the Hunters Ridge neighborhood and Mayo 

Townhomes complex to the north. 

Fences and rooftops are barely visible 

through the trees surrounding the 

2,400-square-foot home, where the oldest 

of Vicks’ three sons, four-year-old Grayson, 

can often be found romping around the yard. 

In time, he’ll be joined by his younger 

brothers – 2-year-old Everett and 6-monthold 

Finley. 

“They need the land,” Vick said. “It will be 

good for them.” 

Their playground – and the home itself – 

likely would be just another subdivision had 

the couple not moved as quickly as they did. 

The home’s National Register listing 

A plaque at the front door of 

the Joseph Darling House in 

west Augusta was installed 

after the home was listed 

on the National Register of 

Historic Places in 1991. 


wouldn’t have prohibited real estate developers 

from tearing it down to build new housing. 

“Someone could have fit a lot of apartments 

on this site,” Vick said. “We are the 

protectors of this house.” 

Joseph Darling (1785-1844) and his wife, 

Mary “Polly” Dunivent Darling (1783-1847), 

were in their sunset years when the home 

was built. 

Historical records indicate Darling served 

as a deacon of Aberdeen Baptist Church 

in Columbia County for 30 years. Both he 

and his wife are buried on the property – a 

common practice in the plantation era – in a 

family cemetery on the tract’s west side. 

It is unknown how many people were 

involved in the home’s construction – 

records show Darling owned 11 slaves at the 

time of his death – but the structure’s mortise 

and tenon framing, horse-hair plastered 

walls and hand-cut lumber speaks to their 

19th century handiwork. 

“This was all cut with a pit saw,” Vick 

says, pointing out how the planks lack the 

circular markings of a sawmill blade. “Just 

two guys; one guy up, one guy down.” 

Nails were used only for interior trim pieces 

and shingles, the latter of which are visible 

under the metal roof installed in later decades. 

Joseph Darling Jr. inherited the property 

from his parents. He unsuccessfully tried to 

sell the farm, placing an advertisement in 

The Augusta Chronicle on Jan. 22, 1849, that 

listed everything included in the deal: horses, 

mules, hogs, cows, “a superior buggy” and 

“a good one horse wagon.” 

The younger Darling eventually moved to 

South Carolina and served with its Confederate 

regiment during the Civil War. He is 

buried in Augusta’s Magnolia Cemetery. 

Historians presume the home was then 

occupied by family heirs as a seasonal residence 

or by overseers charged with managing 

the land. 

The country farm was sold in the late 19th 

century to a string of well-to-do city dwellers, 

including Benjamin H. Warren, a judge 

and head of the National Bank of Augusta; 

William H. Goodrich, a well-known antebellum-era 

Augusta architect; and James. H. 

Alexander, an Augusta mayor. 

The property had been whittled down to 

101 acres by 1919 when Alexander’s sons, 

Irvin and Hugh, sold the home to Wilbert 

J. Dennis, a dairy farmer whose family had 

Grayson Vick, 4, has a snack in the kitchen at the Joseph Darling House, named 

for the mid-18th century farmer who built the home in west Augusta. 


worked the land as early 1893. 

The legacy Darling tract was further subdivided 

among members of the clan during the 97 

years it remained in the Dennis family, the last 

of whom was James M. Dennis. 

“Most of the older people I meet know the 

house as the Dennis Home,” Vick said. 

The house was James Dennis’ boyhood 

home, and he returned there in the late 1970s 

following a military career that took him and 

his wife, Gulia, across the country. 

Because of their frequent moves, the 

couple’s adult sons never lived in Augusta 

nor developed an affinity for the home. Both 

parents had passed by 2016 and the children 

decided to put the home up for sale in early 

2017. 

Which was right around the time the Vicks 

were looking to leave Columbia County. 

The Vicks former three-bedroom home in 

the Riverwood section of Evans had everything 

a young family would want: energy-efficient 

construction, modern fixtures and appliances 

and good neighborhood-zoned schools. 

What was missing was something the architect 

tries to create in his designs: character. 

“We weren’t necessarily looking for something 

historic,” Vick said. “But we wanted 

something with character.” 

Character is something the Darling House 

has in spades, from the old-growth heart pine 

flooring to the single-pane windows whose 

upper sashes were, inexplicably, installed 

upside down. 

“It is what it is,” Vick said. 

It’s a phrase he utters quite often when 

pointing out the home’s eccentricities, such 

as the 2- to 3-inch height variation in the stair 

risers, the less-than-square door frames and 

numerous hairline cracks in the plaster. 

“Coming into the house, we were like, ‘Do 

we repair all the cracks?’” Vick said. “But then 

I thought, they’re just going to show right back 

up. When plaster cracks, it cracks. You just let 

it ride. It is what it is.” 

But that’s not to say the family hasn’t put in 

any sweat-equity into the home. 

Bringing the home’s non-historic elements 

into contemporary standards was a 

nine-month project whose cost exceeded the 

couple’s combo mortgage-construction loan 

by “several, several, several tens of thousands 

of dollars,” Vick says with a smile. 

“We did pull quite a bit out of our savings 

account,” he said. 

The central foyer of the Joseph Darling House showcases the original heart 

pine floors and pit-cut wallboards. 

The Vicks installed central air in 

their children’s two upstairs rooms. 


After moving in, the couple realized the home had no overhead lighting, then 

had the entire home rewired. 

Varying textures can be seen in the horse-hair plaster work in one of the 

the children’s upstairs bedrooms at the Joseph Darling House. 


With help from Vick’s mother and 

stepfather, the couple did much of the 

labor themselves while Mackenzie was 

pregnant with Everett. 

One of the first orders of business was 

a top-to-bottom update of the kitchen, 

a claustrophobia-inducing space that 

was actually the home’s “newer” rooms, 

having been connected to the main 

structure sometime after the turn of 

the century. As with most early American 

homes, kitchens were detached to 

prevent fire from spreading to the entire 

residence. 

The Vicks eliminated a three-inch 

stepdown by leveling the kitchen floors. 

They gave the room a more airy feel by 

ripping out the ceiling to expose vaulted 

roof joists. And they built an additional 

300 square feet over a portion of the back 

porch to create a laundry room and halfbathroom. 

During the process Vick discovered a 

Great Depression-era aspirin tin filled 

with flints used to light old ovens. And 

while sweeping up debris, he found a 

hand-carved child’s toy that resembled 

a dreidel. 

The home wasn’t hooked to the power 

grid until 1927. It had only one electrical 

outlet per room and no overhead lighting, 

a detail the couple didn’t notice until 

their first night in the home. 

“We were wondering why it was so 

dark in the house,” Vick said. “The previous 

owner just used lamps.” 

The Vicks had the entire home 

rewired and added an HVAC system to 

the second floor, whose previous of air 

conditioning had been a single windowmounted 

unit. 

The home’s previous owner was 

paralyzed while undergoing a surgical 

procedure in the 1980s. The oversized, 

handicap-accessible bathroom built for 

him became part of the master bedroom 

suite. Vick used wood reclaimed from an 

old mill in LaGrange, Ga., for the closet 

flooring. 

Vick himself has reclaimed all lumber 

removed during the renovation for future 

projects. A piece of plank siding has become 

a growth-chart board for his children. 

Other pieces are being used to build an 

Grayson Vick, 4, takes a picture from the staircase in the Joseph Darling House. 

The master bedroom is off the central foyer on the first floor. 

The master bathroom at the Joseph Darling House was built onto the home in 

the 1980s and updated by the Vick family after they purchased the home in 

2017. 


Mackenzie Vick and her son, Grayson, 4, watch TV in the living room of the Joseph Darling House in west Augusta. 

8-foot by 4-foot farmhouse-style 

dining room table. He’s still unsure 

what to do with the well-worn door 

sill. 

“You can just imagine how many 

people stepped on that sill to get in 

that door,” he said. “It’s just totally 

worn out. It’s awesome.” 

With the exception of removing a 

precariously leaning chimney from 

the kitchen wall, the home’s exterior 

has largely been untouched. And 

even with the interior upgrades, the 

historic home is more period-correct 

in appearance than it was when 

they bought it, thanks in no part to 

the removal of copious amounts of 

1970s-era grass wallpaper. 

“It was awful,” said Mackenzie, 

whose attempts to remove the 

dust-impregnated wall coverings 

nearly triggered her asthma. 

As for what posed the biggest 

challenge: “The hardest part of the 

project was having a pregnant wife 

breathing down your neck,” Vick 

says with a smile. 

“I was just in a nesting phase,” 

Mackenzie quickly retorts. “And I 

didn’t have anything to nest.” 

Everett, their second son, was 

born 10 days after moving in. 

The Darling Home could someday 

belong to him or one of his 

siblings. Time will tell whether the 

home remains in the Vick family 

as long as it did with the previous 

owners. 

For now, the couple is simply 

enjoying their days living in a dwelling 

older than 26 U.S. states. The little 

enclave they never knew existed 

until three years ago is 15 minutes for 

practically anywhere in Augusta, but 

it might as well be in the middle of the 

countryside. 

“Mackenzie said she actually 

feels safer here than in the middle 

of that neighborhood in Columbia 

County,” Vick said. “It’s really 

quiet here, really quiet. It’s nice.” 


1117_T_01_AM____.indd 1 

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PROMPTING CHANGE 

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A MAP OF 

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24 

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PAGE 14 

ARTS ENTERTAINMENT & CULTURE EDITION 

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From the 

ASHES 

Downtown Augusta rebounded quickly from the Great Fire of 1916 


The Great Fire of 1916 was the 

biggest calamity to hit Augusta 

–but it could have been much 

worse than it actually was. 

Remarkably, nobody died 

during the blaze. Many of the commercial 

buildings gutted by the fire were back in business 

within a couple of years. The width of 

Greene Street acted as a firebreak to keep the 

inferno from spreading southward. 

And the disaster resulted in several 

improvements to fire safety in the city, 

including stricter fire codes for buildings and 

standardized couplings for firehoses. Many 

of the older wooden buildings were replaced 

with less flammable materials. Structures that 

were gutted, including the Lamar and Marion 

buildings, the Houghton School and St. Paul’s 

Episcopal Church, were rebuilt better than 

before. 

The flames on the 700 block of Broad Street illuminate the Confederate Monument on the night of March 22, 1916. 

Downtown’s tallest buildings were gutted by the fire. [FILE/THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE] 


The fire, which caused the equivalent of $235 

million damage in today’s dollars, started in 

the early evening hours in the Dyer Building 

at the northwest corner of Eighth and Broad 

streets on March 22 – a tailor at the Kelly Dry 

Goods store left an electric iron-press machine 

on. 

The blaze would end up consuming three 

dozen city blocks, from Eighth Street to East 

Boundary and from the riverfront to Greene 

Street. 

The inferno illuminated the Confederate 

Monument as it roared through the 700 block 

of Broad, gutting The Augusta Chronicle building 

(now known as the Marion Building) and 

the Empire Building (now known as the Lamar 

Building). The office of Augusta’s other newspaper, 

the Augusta Herald, also was destroyed. 

Cotton warehouses along the riverfront 

ignited like dry tinder. But many considered 

the loss of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church to be 

the fire’s most tragic casualty. The church, 

founded in 1750, lost its 1820 building and its 

parish hall that was built in 1912. Parishioners 

were able to save several furnishings before 

the fire consumed the buildings, including the 

original baptismal font brought from England 

in 1751. 

In all, 600 homes, commercial buildings and 

public structures – including Tubman High 

School and Houghton Grammar School – were 

destroyed. An estimated 3,000 people were 

homeless and 1,000 were jobless. 

Other major commercial businesses 

destroyed by the fire include: Union Savings 

Bank, The Postal Telegraph, Western Union, 

The Schneider Building, The Commercial Club, 

the Irish-American Bank, the YWCA and the 

John Evans hardware store. 

Looting was non-existent thanks to a militia 

that patrolled the streets where thousands of 

dollars worth of personal property were put in 

piles by families able to empty their homes of 

valuables before the fire reached them. 

Wealthy Olde Town residents chose not to 

rebuild in the city center and moved uphill 

to the Summerville neighborhood, creating a 

socioeconomic disparity still visible today. 

An unidentified man stands among 

the ruins of a residential area 

following the Great Fire of 1916. 



“They went to the Hill. And in some cases, they 

took those large lots the big houses were on and built 

two, or sometimes three, smaller houses,” Historic 

Augusta Executive Director Erick Montgomery said 

during a 2006 interview. 

Montgomery said many people mistakenly believe 

the fire destroyed all of downtown. 

“People think that everything in Augusta burned in 

1916, and it’s just not true,” Montgomery said. 

“A lot of buildings that predate the fire are still here.” 

The extra-wide Greene Street helped contain 

the fire. The two largest structures, the Empire 

and Augusta Chronicle buildings, were rebuilt and 

opened as the Lamar and Marion buildings, respectively, 

within a couple of years. 

RIGHT: The ruins of The 

Commercial Club are brought 

down with explosives in this 

photo after the Great Fire 

of 1916. [FILE/THE AUGUSTA 

CHRONICLE] 

BELOW: Children pose in front 

of the ruins of the Houghton 

Grammar School after the 

Great Fire of 1916. The school 

was rebuilt later that year on 

Greene Street. [SPECIAL] 

ABOVE: A forest 

of chimneys is 

all that remains 

of houses at the 

corner of Bay and 

Fourth streets in 

the Olde Town 

neighborhood, 

which was heavily 

damaged by the 

Great Fire of 1916. 

[FILE/THE AUGUSTA 

CHRONICLE] 


COMMERCIAL 

JOINING TOGETHER TO 

CREATE A NEW LEGACY 

• SALES & LEASING 

• PROPERTY MANAGEMENT 

• SITE SELECTION 

• DEVELOPMENT & CONSTRUCTION 

• PROJECT MANAGEMENT 

• CONSULTING

A wave of new construction projects began, 

with noted architect G. Lloyd Preacher designing 

many of the city’s post-fire buildings. 

One of the last surviving witnesses to the fire, 

Isabelle North Goodwin, described the tragedy in 

a 1999 Chronicle interview. She and her brother 

had to flee the family’s Greene Street home. 

“It was terrible,” recalled Goodwin, who was 

eight years old at the time. “It was one awful 

mass of flames, and we watched it go down the 

streets...I remember my father had called earlier 

and said the Dyer Building was on fire. Then 

Mother sent me and my cousin up to the Hill to 

spend the night.” 

When Goodwin returned a day later, she was 

shocked. 

“The next day, there was nothing but chimneys,” 

she said. “Chimneys, chimneys, chimneys. 

All those fine homes were totally gone. It was a 

night to remember.” 

TOP: The ruins of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church are shown 

in this photo of the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1916. 

The building was nearly a century old when it burned. 


LEFT: A postcard image shows the ruins of the Union 

Savings Bank and the Dyer Building, the origin of the 

1916 fire. [SPECIAL] 

BELOW: Homeless families lived in tent cities after 

the Great Fire of 1916. Approximately 600 homes were 

destroyed, leaving more than 3,000 people homeless. 



Same address. Just new digs. 

Innovating · Renovating · Restoring 

725 Broad Street, Augusta Georgia 30901 706.724.0851 | augustachronicle.com

Stuck in the Past? 

City struggles with path to ‘smart meter’ program 


A woman feeds coins to a 

Broad Street parking meter 

in this 1977 file photo. The 

meters were removed within 

three years amid declining 

downtown commerce. Some 

officials and property owners 

are pushing for new “smart 

meters” now that parking is 

once again at a premium. 

[FILE/THE AUGUSTA 

CHRONICLE] 

The push for paid parking 

on Broad Street may have 

run out of steam – again. 

Augusta commissioners 

in December and mid- 

January rejected a new 

parking ordinance that would have charged 

motorists $1.50 an hour from 8 a.m. to 8 

p.m. Monday through Saturday in the 756 

spaces on Broad Street between Fifth and 

13th. 

Residents could buy an annual permit 

for $50, while downtown employees would 

pay $25 per month to park on certain 

streets. 

As of press time, commissioners were 

expected to address the issue again Jan. 27. 

In December, the proposal failed by a 

6-2-2 vote. On Jan. 14 it failed to advance 

from a committee charged with making 

revisions. In both instances, proposal 

opponents said they had not had a chance 

to thoroughly review the ordinance. 

Commissioner Ben Hasan said during the 


Jan. 14 meeting that commissioners were 

being asked “to make a decision right 

there” after being handed documents. 

Concerns have included charging 

for parking on Saturdays when many 

businesses are closed, where downtown 

employees would park and how parking 

revenue would be distributed. 

Mayor Pro Tem Sean Frantom questioned 

several aspects of the plan at 

the Jan. 14 meeting, including why it 

does not designate proceeds be used for 

downtown improvements. The ordinance 

says only that they will be “used 

for economic revitalization in Augusta” 

at the commission’s direction. 

If approved, the parking meters would 

be modern “smart” meters that allow 

people to pay with currency, credit and 

debit cards or through smartphone apps. 

They would be “kiosks” serving multiple 

spaces, instead of the pole-mounted 

machines the city removed from downtown 

following the retail exodus that 

occurred with the opening of two suburban 

shopping malls in 1978. 

Commissioner Mary Davis said in 

December she would not approve a plan 

without specifying where revenue goes 

and how it is used. 

“People that want to support this want 

to know it will be designated to a specific 

improvement fund,” Commissioner 

Mary Davis said at the commission’s 

Dec. 17 meeting. “Until we really focus 

on that, I wouldn’t be able to move 

forward.” 

Augusta Mayor Hardie Davis, who 

created a parking task force in early 

2019, has pushed for the commission to 

approve a contract with parking consultants 

SP Plus, a Chicago-based firm that 

also oversees the parking management 

plan for the city of Atlanta and numerous 

other municipalities and public venues 

nationwide. 

The task force was a response to 

growing concern from some downtown 

residents about parking availability 

during peak hours. The goal of the 

parking-management plan’s meter 

system is to promote the “turnover” of 

spaces in the central business district 

to discourage all-day parking in prime 

customer spots by residents, employees 

and commuters who use downtown as a 

Computerized parking kiosks, such as this one in Stockton, Calif., could be a common site in 

downtown Augusta as part of a parking management plan under consideration by the Augusta 

Commission. [CLIFFORD OTO/THE STOCKTON ( CALIF.) RECORD] 

carpool meeting spot. 

In addition to the $1.50-an-hour, twohour 

maximum Broad Street spaces, 

additional spaces would be available at 

the same rate for up to four hours in 283 

spaces on Fifth through 12th streets one 

block north and south of Broad. Along 

Ellis Street, downtown residents can pay 

$50 a year to park and downtown workers, 

$25 a month. 

A third set of approximately 104 

spaces will be created along Ellis Street 

for residential and employee permit 

parking. 

City Engineering Director Hameed 

Malik has said the program is expected 

to generate an estimated $1.2 million its 

first year and would cost $900,000 to 

operate, including start-up costs to fund 

50 kiosks where motorists enter their 

license plate numbers and pay. A team of 

an estimated 11 people hired to enforce 

parking downtown will be paid out of 

that revenue and won’t be city employees, 

Malik said. 

SP Plus has requested a $65,000 a year 

annual fee, but Malik said the fee may 

change to a revenue-based fee to “make 

sure that we’re collecting the money.” 

Commissioner Bill Fennoy, who 

represents the downtown area, said 

during the December meeting he was 

frustrated by the amount of time it has 

taken to adopt a parking management 

plan. He said the city has “been talking 

about parking for two, three, four years 

now” and that he is ready to approve 

it, to free up spaces used by downtown 

workers for visitors to downtown. 

“The bottom line is that 75 (percent of) 

people that park on Broad Street either 

work on Broad Street or live on Broad 

Street. It’s only 25% that want to shop on 

Broad Street,” Fennoy said. 

Savannah has charged for downtown 

parking since the 1950s and has around 

2,400 paid on-street spaces plus 3,000 

in parking garages that will generate 

$17.5 million in gross revenue this year, 

said Sean Brandon, the city’s director of 

Mobility and Parking Services. 

Macon-Bibb County last year instituted 

a paid parking program, where 

motorists pay $1.25-per-hour for 

up to three hours at 1,000 metered 

spaces. Unlike Augusta’s proposal 

and Savannah’ program, Macon does 

not use kiosks serving multiple spaces 

but instead 600 traditional single- or 

double-space meters. 


ON THE STREET 

Margaret Woodard 


DOWNTOWN PROSPERS 

THROUGH PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS 

Entire city benefits from downtown corporate philanthropy 

By MARGARET WOODARD | Executive Director, Augusta Downtown Development Authority 

T 

he Downtown Development 

Authority received a check from 

Georgia Power in the amount of 

$50,000 last month to continue its 

Facade Improvement Program. 

The program began in 2018 when Georgia Power 

pledged $15,000 toward storefront-improvement 

assistance in the DDA footprint. 

The money was put to good use quickly, and 

resulted in three matching grants in the amount of 

$5,000. 

The process is simple: Fill out an application, 

provide $5,000 in receipts for money spent on 

facade improvements, submit before-and-after 

photos and a city Certificate of Occupancy and the 

DDA will match your investment. The project must 

be completed and is subject to approval by the DDA 

Board of Directors. 

The program allows the DDA to say thank you for 

investing your own skin in the game in downtown 

projects, creating jobs and increasing the downtown 

tax base – which all of Augusta benefits from. 


Southern Salad, left, and the Augusta Convention & Visitors Bureau’s Augusta & Co. store are among several 

downtown businesses to benefit from public-private initiatives such as the Georgia Power-Downtown Development 

Authority Facade Improvement Program. [DAMON CLINE/THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE] 

Previous year’s recipients include: 

• Augusta & Co., the Augusta 

Convention & Visitors Bureau’s retail 

store/visitor experience center at 1010 

Broad St.; a $3.8 million capital investment 

and 17 relocated jobs. 

• Southern Salad restaurant at 1006 

Broad St.; 14 new jobs and a $725,000 

capital investment. 

• Beulah’s Antiques store at 316 8th 

St.; four jobs and an $80,325 capital 

investment. 

This is a beautiful example of the 

importance of a public-private partnerships, 

which some have defined as “the 

collaboration between a government 

agency and a private-sector company 

that can be used to finance, build and 

operate projects.” 

Such partnerships often provide new 

sources of capital and faster completion 

of projects with less red tape. In 

downtown Augusta, they help send the 

message that we are open for business 

and here to facilitate new and expanding 

businesses. 

Downtowns that are thriving across 

the state are doing so because of good 

corporate stewards such as Georgia 

Power. The utility is no stranger to 

public-private partnerships in the central 

business district, and it has been a 

strong partner with the DDA in so many 

ways over the years. 

The company has financed a muchneeded 

housing feasibility report, 

produced a digital-animation video 

rendering of the Riverfront at the 

Depot project at the historic train depot 

property, provided site assistance to 

potential developers and have now 

invested a total of $80,000 in the facade 

program during the past three years. 

They exemplify their credo of “A 

Citizen Wherever We Serve.” 

The DDA has over the past decade 

entered into successful partnerships 

with the private sector. More than six 

figures in funds, for example, have been 

raised by the private sector for new 

Christmas decorations in recent years. 

The business community also has 

stepped up to help fund our retail-development 

strategy, with Auben Realty 

serving in 2019 as the lead sponsor of 

crucial demographic and marketing 

reports for retail prospects. 

We believe the private sector is more 

than willing to invest in good programs 

that facilitate the revitalization of our 

city center, as evidenced by the majority 

vote to create – and later extend 

– a five-year Business Improvement 

District, which funded the city’s successful 

Clean Augusta Downtown 

Initiative (CADI) beautification and 

public-safety team. 

City leaders declined to take action 

on authorizing the second CADI “yes” 

vote, but that shouldn’t stop the business 

community from exploring other 

partnership opportunities. 

Downtown Augusta’s future successes 

will rely on these continued 

partnerships and we thank Georgia 

Power and other corporate entities for 

their continued investment in the heart 

and soul of their city. 


BRIEFINGBy DAMON CLINE 

HITS & MISSES 

BROWN IS THE BRAND: What’s in a name? Everything, if that name involves the city’s arena 

and its most famous son. Locals were rightfully displeased during the fall when a new digital 

marquee in front of James Brown Arena didn’t have the words “James,” “Brown,” or “Arena” in 

the sign. The error was thankfully fixed with minimal cost. Yes, we understand the company 

hired to run the arena and the adjacent Bell Auditorium has for years marketed the co-joined 

venue as the “Augusta Entertainment Complex,” but almost nobody refers to that terminology 

in casual usages. Market the arena and the auditorium, if you must, as the Augusta 

Entertainment Complex to the entertainment industry. But when it comes to the sign out front, 

the marquee should call the buildings by their locally designated names. 

TOO MUCH TOLERANCE FOR TOPLESS: Do some city officials actually enjoy having seedy 

strip joints in the central business district? One has to wonder when they go along with letting 

the clubs stay in business while a federal lawsuit over the constitutionality of city zoning 

ordinances winds its way through the courts. Instead of just enforcing the law when the clubs’ 

grandfather clause expired Jan. 1 – which at least would have forced their new owner to file an 

injunction – the city simply rolled over and allowed the bars to keep operating. Why? It’s not 

as if playing nice makes the nude-club lawsuit go away. If the city is confident its adult-entertainment 

and liquor-sales codes are constitutional, it should have barred the new owner from 

opening, rather than give a months-long free pass. The lawsuit is so flimsy one federal judge 

asked in January to see “specific, concrete facts” showing how the law harms the business. 

HAPPY TRAILS: The signs of construction you see near the intersection of Reynolds and 15th 

streets is one of the most anticipated trail developments in the metro area – the connection 

of the Augusta Canal levee trail to Riverwalk Augusta. The more than $1 million project, which 

includes the now-familiar wooden boardwalk leading from the Hawk’s Gully gate structure, 

will run along the base of the levee to the 13th Street terminus of the Riverwalk trail near the 

Georgia Cyber Center. Not only does the project complete the levee trail that was started in 

1999 near the canal’s headgates at Savannah Rapids Park, it will be the only trail linking downtown 

and Columbia County. A final amenity of the expanded trail: Access to North Augusta’s 

Greeneway via the 13th Street bridge. 

RIGHT HAND, MEET LEFT HAND: If a time bomb is ticking, you either disarm it or warn 

everyone in the vicinity. Augusta city leaders chose to do neither when it comes to the bomb 

that is the Unisys parking agreement. For years the city knew it was under obligation to provide 

the tech company with some 500 parking spaces as one of the conditions of locating in the 

riverfront Port Royal complex. Why on earth would they sit on their hands until a developer is in 

the final stages of agreeing to acquire a nearby city-owned tract that has been serving as a de 

facto parking lot? Now, the tech company is unhappy, the developer has lost faith in its ability 

to secure the property for a massive mixed-use project, and city leaders are pointing fingers at 

each other. What we’ve got here is failure to communicate. 


HITS & MISSES 

THE METER IS RUNNING: Here’s how parking-management is handled in the city of North 

Augusta: 1) officials decide they need parking meters at the busy Riverside Village development; 

2) they vote yes to install them and; 3) they install them. The entire process took six 

months. Contrast that to the city of Augusta, where officials – as of press time – are still wringing 

their hands over a proposal from a Chicago company that manages paid-parking programs 

in hundreds of cities. Parking management, apparently, isn’t rocket science outside the Augusta 

city limits. Are North Augusta officials considering tweaking their program? Yes, and that city’s 

quarterbacks are changing up the plays as the game is in progress. Augusta commissioners, on 

the other hand, can’t seem to find their way out of the locker room. 

HARD TIME TO SHOW TIME: Although it’s ordinarily a negative outcome when city officials 

drag their feet making a decision (parking, the Riverfront at the Depot project, etc.), the 

Augusta Commission’s vote to postpone the demolition of Augusta’s former city jail at 401 

Walton Way is a good call. The vacant Law Enforcement Center appears to be a prized asset in 

Georgia’s growing film industry – the six-story jail has been used in at least three film productions, 

including the sequel to 2016’s “Suicide Squad.” Although an audit suggests the film 

industry’s contribution to the state economy is overblown, there are few financial downsides to 

leaving the jail as-is. Until the city has a better use for the property, the old jail is best left alone. 

GETTING EXTRA CREDIT: If you want to picture what benefits from the new federal 

Opportunity Zone tax benefits will look like, you’ll be able to see them soon enough sprouting 

from the ground on a 4-acre tract at 636 11th St. That’s where Evans-based Ivey Development 

is planning to build an upscale apartment community called Millhouse Station – the first allprivate, 

large-scale apartment complex in Augusta’s urban core since Canalside more than nine 

years ago. Although Ivey has not disclosed its investment, the company has said the expense 

wouldn’t have been justified without incentives from Opportunity Zone benefits pushing the 

project across the line. The credits were designed to spur investment in economically-distressed 

census tracts. And in this case, they are doing just that. 

COCKTAILS WITH A CAUSE: The rooftop bar that Goodwill Industries’ Edgar’s Hospitality 

Group is developing at the downtown Augusta University tower at 699 Broad St. promises to 

be a great hangout when it opens by April. But it also will give promising hospitality industry 

students the experience they need to build a productive career in the food and beverage 

industry. That’s because the bar, to be called Edgar’s Above Broad, will be part of the hands-on 

curriculum of Culinary Operations in Resorts and Clubs associate’s degree program created by 

Goodwill’s Helms College. Not only will the bar and restaurant give great views of downtown’s 

burgeoning entertainment district, it will give future culinary workers valuable experience while 

providing the nonprofit Goodwill revenue to fund its educational and job-service programs. 


GRADING DOWNTOWN 

6.5 5.5 

7.0 1.0 


PUBLIC SAFETY 

Previous Score: 6.5 

GOVERNMENT HOUSING PARKING 




For being home to one of the 

nation’s brainiest military installations, 

Augusta is awfully slow to 

adopt a technology to help solve 

– and more important, deter – crime 

in its central business district: police 

surveillance cameras. Downtown’s 

most pedestrian-dense areas have 

relatively few police-monitored cameras. 

With costs in the low six-figure 

range, the systems aren’t cheap, but 

neither are property crimes, aggravated 

assaults or worse. Downtown 

is statistically one of the city’s safer 

urban core neighborhoods, and 

the presence of highly conspicuous 

public safety cameras would 

go a long way toward changing the 

decades-old stigma. 

The Augusta Commission is always a 

mixed bag, and the past few months 

have been no exception. City leaders 

have done the right thing by joining 

a South Carolina lawsuit against the 

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over 

the Corps’ flawed plans to demolish 

the New Savannah Bluff Lock and 

Dam. But then city officials inexplicably 

drag their feet to seal the deal 

with an Alabama-based developer 

interested in building a $94 million 

mixed-use project along the exact 

same riverfront they are fighting to 

protect. It’s not an either-or proposition; 

officials can – and should – be 

seeking success on both fronts. 

The first large-scale, fully privatesector 

apartment development in 

the downtown area in nine years 

– Ivey Development’s 155-unit 

Millhouse Station – was announced 

in December. For a company better 

known for developing single- and 

multi-family developments in 

suburban areas, Ivey’s “class A” 

apartment community is reaffirmation 

that Augusta’s urban core is 

increasingly becoming a destination 

for young professionals and emptynesters 

seeking proximity to cultural 

amenities and the city’s growing 

tech and health care sectors. As a 

bonus: The development will help 

fill in vacant dots between the city’s 

downtown and medical districts 

when it opens in 2021. 

We’re not sure how long it should 

take a city government to adopt a 

downtown parking-management 

plan, but we’re confident 10 years 

is not a “best practices” example. 

That’s how long city leaders have 

hemmed, hawed, ignored, tabled 

and resuscitated (and tabled again) 

a decision to create a much-needed 

paid-parking program. The latest 

holdup came in January when 

Augusta commissioners declined 

to take action on a contract with 

Chicago-based SP Plus after a 

months-long procurement process 

with input from a special city task 

force. So, leaders won’t enforce existing 

parking laws or build new decks, 

but will micromanage an experienced 

vendor overseeing parking programs 

in hundreds of other cities? 

8.5 5.5 

7 8 

DEVELOPMENT 


INFRASTRUCTURE ARTS & CULTURE COMMERCE 


Previous Score: 7 

Previous Score: 8 

It’s not that downtown hasn’t 

had new-development activity 

during the past quarter, it’s just 

there hasn’t been enough to move 

the needle – yet. Several renovation 

projects in various stages of 

completion are sure to be popular 

additions to the central business 

district, including Haltermann 

Partners’ 901 Broad St., Goodwill 

Industries’ rooftop bar concept at 

the 699 Broad St. building and Frog 

Hollow Hospitality Group’s remake 

of the southeast corner of 10th 

and Broad streets. Security Federal 

Bank’s new Walton Way branch 

office is generating traction and 

its future branch at 1109 Broad St. 

promises to be a showpiece. 

82 | 1736magazine.com 

The public space in Augusta’s urban 

core is in something of a holding 

pattern as two major ballot initiatives 

await citizen vote. One of 

those issues, the 10-year-extension 

of the regional Transportation 

Investment Act sales tax, will 

appear on the March 24 Presidential 

Preference Primary ballot. The 

other, Richmond County’s special 

purpose local options sales tax, will 

be on the Nov. 3 ballot. Approval of 

each would set aside big funds to 

improve downtown infrastructure, 

particularly the TIA sales tax. Keep 

in mind the current tax, which 

sunsets in 2022, is funding seven 

downtown-area street improvements 

and giving Broad Street its 

first major makeover in more than 

40 years. 

Deciding to get serious about public 

art in Augusta was an easy decision, 

as the city is woefully behind peer 

cities in creating appealing public 

spaces and creating a “sense of 

place.” However, getting people to 

agree on what constitutes “good” 

public art is not so easy, as has 

been illustrated by the Greater 

Augusta Arts Council’s recent 

unveiling of two models that would 

grace the city’ gateways. City 

taxpayers deserve to have input 

on the art – they are, after all, the 

ones paying for it – but the overly 

negative reaction to proposals 

makes one question whether only 

naysayers are making their voices 

heard. Hopefully, discord over gateway 

proposals won’t have a chilling 

effect on future public art installations 

in the urban core. 

Business appears to remain steady 

in the central business district 

despite a handful of closings, which 

may have been precipitated by forces 

other than their lack of customers. 

Spaces for former downtown businesses, 

such as the restaurants Füse 

and The Cotton Patch, already are 

occupied by new tenants. If downtown 

property owners are bearish on 

business in the central business district, 

they’ve given little indication to 

show it. In fact, groundwork already 

is being laid to turn the southeast 

corner of 10th and Ellis streets – a 

vacant 1950s-era commercial center 

– into a modern mixed-use development 

with more than four dozen 

apartments. 

OVERALL SCORE: 

6.12 

Previous score: 6.19

FINAL WORDS 

History abounds in 

Augusta – for those 

who take time to learn 

DAMON CLINE, EDITOR 

Working in the media business 

gives me a little deeper 

knowledge of Augusta’s 

history than the average 

resident. 

Writing about buildings and tracts of land in 

Augusta-Richmond County’s 329-square-mile 

area forces me into research exercises that few have 

reason to partake. 

Every development, redevelopment, renovation, 

demolition, sale or lease triggers a string of questions 

that must be answered to craft an informative story. 

Who owns this property? Who were its previous 

owners? When did they sell it, and for how much? 

What kind of building is this? How big is it? When 

was it built? What is its current use? What was its 

previous use? What happened there over the years? 

The list goes on. 

Despite this better-than-average understanding 

of local history, gaps in my knowledge are constantly 

being revealed and brought into focus, as they were 

during the production of this edition of 1736. 

Case in point: The home of the Rev. Charles T. 

Walker. 

I was a tabula rasa on local history when I moved 

here 23 years ago, but it quickly became apparent 

Walker was a notable figure in African-American 

history. There are, after all, a public school – the 

high-performing C.T. Walker Traditional Magnet 

School – and a major urban corridor, Laney-Walker 

Boulevard, that bear his name. 

Over time, I would learn how this late-19th century 

figure – founder of one of Augusta’s most influential 

houses of worship, Tabernacle Baptist Church 

– worked for the betterment of his community and 

became a nationally known evangelist. 

What I had never thought about was the place 

Walker called home. Not “home” in any metaphorical 

sense; home as in his actual residence – the very 

house in which he ate, slept and prayed. 

I simply assumed the home was either long gone, 

occupied by its current owner or a dot on a local map 

of African-American heritage sites. What I never fathomed 

is that Walker’s more than century-old home 

– which sits on the very street co-named in his honor – 

could have been left to slowly rot. But that is precisely 

what transpired during the past several decades. 

How? 

As with many things, those in the most logical 

position to be stewards – the Laney-Walker neighborhood, 

Walker’s former church and the city of 

Augusta – appeared to abdicate any responsibility. 

Had the nonprofit Historic Augusta not stepped in 

to acquire and stabilize the modest two-story home 

four years ago, the property likely would be a vacant 

lot today. 

“Whenever someone says, ‘They need to do 

something’ – we are the proverbial ‘they,’ “ Historic 

Augusta Director Erick Montgomery said. 

The organization has neither the power of government 

nor the cash of a developer to “save” 

endangered historic buildings. But with the C.T. 

Walker home, it had to act before the damage was 

irreparable. 

“Charles T. Walker was the black Billy Graham in 

his day for the whole country – if not the whole world 

– and this is where he lived,” Montgomery said. 

“We’re just going to let it fall down? We just couldn’t 

do that. It’s a miracle it’s not already gone.” 

If this edition of 1736 compels you to do anything, 

it is to learn more about the city in which you live. 

Fascinating stories are everywhere. 

Including at the former home of a preacher at 1011 

Laney-Walker Blvd.

Revitalization Edition - 1736 Magazine, Winter 2020

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