Summary of Project

This building is in the old section of historical downtown Opelika. The building is around 70-80 years old. There were several challenges we faced on this project, but the overall project exceeded the owner’s expectations. We were asked to create office space for Allegare, a small international company with about 15 employees. The existing building was 2-24’x88’ condo bays with 16’ ceilings and a load bearing wall between them.

We removed the walls and created support with the center office spaces that also has large file storage in the attic. We removed the old floor and found that several of the rough sawn heart pine floor joists were rotted, so we rebuilt the floor system and installed conventional ¾” plywood, over conventional 2×12 joists, and rebuilt support piers as needed.

We cleaned up, repainted and sealed old brick walls to give a rich warm feeling to the inside of the building. We rebuilt brickwork on the rear wall, and installed windows and a door leading to a new brick paver courtyard used as break space. We created a board room with lots of glass to capture the limited lighting which came from the openings in front and rear of the building. The old T&G heart pine ceiling was refinished to give a beautiful natural wood look. We installed new drains from the courtyard under the building, and installed a dehumidification system for the crawl space. We installed new heart pine floors and carpet in the work areas.

We rebuilt the front entry creating an inviting entryway. We left an 18’ opening with beams and created arched supports along with decorative crown mold bracket bases. We built divider knee walls along with center office spaces for managers. We created a new restroom and kitchen. We were able to create a new useful space preserving many of the old features of the building.