Bob Foos
The completed preservation of historic buildings on Main Street was celebrated Tuesday with an open house.
Donna and Dan Mitchell, of DEMC Properties, purchased and began restoration of the adjoining Century and Clark Dodson buildings, at 27 and @7 S. Main St.
Then they paused to make sure they were meeting guidelines for the buildings to be listed on the National Registry of Historic Places.
“These are buildings that are now on the national registry,” said Donna Mitchell during the open house. The celebration is about “bringing back to life” these buildings that could have been demolished.
Now that the restoration is complete, she said she wanted people to “come out and see how great they (building restorations) came out.”
Among those in attendance were staff members of contractor, Integrity Custom Homes, which is based in an office across the street, at 8 S. Main St.
Another reason for the open house was to make it known that the two ground-floor commercial spaces are ready to be occupied. Both have more than 2,000 square feet of space. And there is public parking in the back.
There are six apartments on the second floor, all of which have been rented since April.
“I’m just now taking applications for the commercial spaces,” said Mitchell, with hopes of attracting businesses that will “add to the revitalization” of downtown Webb City.
Next up for DEMC Properties will be the similar restoration of the T.C. Hayden Building.
There will be four apartments on the second floor of that building, plus commercial space on the ground floor.
It looks like the three buildings are one, but according to the inscribed stones at the tops of the buildings, the Hayden Building was built first in 1900, followed by the Century and Dodson buildings in 1901.
A hardware store that was inexplicably closed in the 1950s or ’60s without a liquidation sale was in the Hayden Building. It was purchased in the early ’80s by Ray Rose, who auctioned the contents before selling antiques there.
Miller’s Furniture occupied the Dodson Building for decades.
The Webb City Sentinel isn’t a newspaper – but it used to be, serving Webb City, Missouri, in print from 1879-2020. This “newspaper” seeks to carry on that tradition as a nonprofit corporation.
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