An anchor of Mount Airy?s Main Street will crash to the ground next Thursday when the 80-year-old Watkins building is razed.
It is the second piece of town history destroyed by a Labor Day fire ? joining the neighboring Bohn building, and a total of six apartments and seven businesses.
However, like the Bohn building the Watkins building will return ? albeit new and improved.
The town?s planning commission recently approved plans for a bigger building to reestablish Main Street.
The new Watkins building will be three stories and about 14 feet taller than the former building, making it tower over everything else on Main Street.
The town?s planning commission approved the plans under the conditions that the property manager, Frank Illiano, work with the town to add 20 more parking spaces downtown.
“We?re in this sort of awkward situation where this is the second building that?s come along that we?re not exactly thrilled about,” said David Pyatt, a town planning commissioner. “But on the other hand, I guess it?s a pretty good-looking building.”
The top floor will house six apartments, the second has office space, the first is for retail stores and the basement will have more office or commercial space, Illiano said.
The building will be set 10 feet off the street, easing into a courtyard created by 15- and 30-foot setbacks from the new Bohn building and a restaurant on its other side.
The building will be about 4,000 square feet larger, with windows illuminating both sides.
Not everything is changing at the old spot, however; the Watkins building plaque on the front of the building will be saved and tacked onto the front of the new building.
The temporary business park with portable quarters for the displaced businesses from the Watkins and Bohn building is slated to open the end of next week.
