For nearly 30 years one of South Point’s historic buildings that was once home to Staley’s Pharmacy has set vacant.

That is all about to change as Shield Roofing and Construction LLC is expecting to open its new office inside the former pharmacy.

“We are hoping to start using the building in the next couple of days,” owner of SRC, Louis Escobedo said. “We’ll have our official open house toward the end of April but we are hoping to start doing some stuff out of here this week.”

The building had been unoccupied since the 1980s and was in need of serious repairs. The condition of the structure was so bad that it scared several potential buyers away.

“They didn’t want to tackle the work that needed to be done,” Escobedo said. “It was in really bad shape. The roof was in terrible condition and leaked in several spots. But, for us it made sense. I mean,this is what we do.”

Shield bought the building in December of last year and immediately began renovating the building. The history of the location was one of the major selling points for Escobedo.

“We got to work right away,” Escobedo said. “The first thing we did was strip the metal off the building back down to the original brick. It’s a historic spot, a place that everybody knows. I wanted to restore that original look.”

James Boyd, the project manager for SRC, echoed Escobedo’s thoughts on the buildings historical stature.

“It is a historic building,” Boyd said. “I think the level of craftsmanship that we have put into the building is really apropos to the historicalness of the building. We wanted to update it and modernize it but still uphold the integrity of the original structure.”

The building also gives Shield a physical location allowing them to legitimize the business and offer services competing companies are unable to provide.

“Just having a place people can come as opposed to working out of a garage makes the business more legitimate,” Escobedo said. “Plus we are going to have a nice show room here where people can come and really get a good look at our work. Many of the other construction companies in the area don’t have that.”

Aside from breathing new life into a historic building the new SRC location will bring jobs to Lawrence County.

“We are looking for employees on a daily basis,” Boyd said. “For a multitude of positions not just construction jobs. If you need a job we have one for you that will pay good.

“We’ll train you if, we need to but we also want hard working high character people. So the community is helping us with providing us a great place to conduct business, and we’ll help it by helping to bring jobs to the area.”