A crew with Gene Reid’s construction company started Monday tearing out wood floors on the first level of The Depot at Main and 13th Street South, beginning the space’s conversion from commercial space to six high-end apartments.
By Friday, workers were tediously removing nails from the subfloor to make way for installing laminate tile.
“We’ll be done (with the whole project) by February, if not before,” Reid told The Dispatch. “We’ll move on it pretty quick. It’s all inside work, so we won’t have to take any rain days.”
Gayle Guynup, a judge from Santa Rosa, California, bought the more than 6,100 square-foot former train depot in 2014, converting the upper level to four, one-bedroom apartments and renovating the lower floor for commercial space.
All 22 of Guynup’s apartments downtown, including the four upstairs at The Depot, have enjoyed 100% occupancy for the past three years, said Royce Hudspeth, a Realtor with Rhett Real Estate who manages Guynup’s local properties. Filling the commercial space downstairs at The Depot, however, has been more challenging – especially after the lease for an event planning venue located there expired Jan. 1.
“Following that, we had this gap where we had several people interested in the space, … but (it was) just square peg, round hole,” Hudspeth said. “… It was the right business, but they couldn’t afford it. They could afford it, but it was the wrong business.”
Meanwhile, demand for downtown apartments continues to exceed the supply, Hudspeth said.
“Despite the fact we’ve got more historic apartments than any other town in Mississippi, there continues to be such a strong demand,” he said.
Without an approved permitted use, buildings in the downtown historic district are restricted to apartments above street level, with commercial spaces required on the ground floor. But the planning commission and city council granted Guynup her permit in May, making The Depot, built in 1886, one of roughly a half-dozen buildings in the district with ground-floor apartments.
Three of the apartments will be two-bedroom and the other three will be one-bedroom, Hudspeth said. Each will have one bathroom.
Along with laminate floors, the apartments will have granite countertops, stainless steel appliances and a standalone storage unit, with a parking area of about an acre available to residents.
“They are going to be very nice,” Hudspeth said. “It’s really going to anchor that part of the eastern historic district. … It’s going to be a hot potato. They won’t last long.”
Guynup did not return a call from The Dispatch by press time.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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