Crews have been hard at work to finish renovating three of the 13 downtown area businesses in Jefferson.

Jefferson Matters: Main Street was awarded a $1 million Community Development Block Grant last year to improve 13 buildings on the downtown square. The project started earlier this spring and the contractor, Pinnacle Construction, is finishing up three buildings including: the former Treasure Chest and Don’s Ace Hardware on the east side of the square, and Muir Embroidery on the northwest corner.

Franks Design Group Lead Architect Pete Franks says Don’s Ace Hardware and Muir Embroidery had its share of surprises. In the case of Don’s, Franks says the front entrance was originally designed with a recessed entry that set back from the sidewalk.

“Once we had the contractor here and we removed what had been the former front wall, to our surprise, that front wall was just sitting on the front of the slab and there wasn’t a structural foundation underneath it. So we had to dig down quite literally to get some new foundation in there so we’d be sure that the new work was totally founded.”

Franks points out that they knew of some of the issues about the Muir Embroidery facade, but once they found out that the top portion of bricks was so badly crumbling, they had to completely tear it down and start over.

“Which is a pretty Herculean effort to be able to get the building back to the point where it’s standing. However, it is a significant building, it’s on the corner of the square which means it’s visually very apparent. Those sort of heroic measures are really what it takes for that to continue to be present on Jefferson’s square.”

The project is anticipated to be complete by the end of this week.