Capitol Places - Website

Berry’s History:
This 3 story 32,000 sq ft structure was originally built in 1912, as designed by Columbia architect J.B. Urguhart. At that point it was a state of the art building with huge storefront display windows trimmed with marble. The prime tenant in 1912 was a department store. The building housed department stores on the first floor until "Berry’s On Main" department store utilized most of the building for its downtown operation from the late 1950’s until the early 80's, when it became another casualty of the flight to the suburbs by downtown retailers.

The 11,000 square foot first floor currently houses four retailers, including a men’s clothing store. Twenty apartments are being added to the 2nd and 3rd floors. Capitol Places and Columbia's design architect, J. Lesene Monteith, are working with the South Carolina Department of History and Archives and the U.S. Department of Interior to qualify the building on the National Register of Historic Places. Renovations were done by Weathers Contracting Company, Inc, of West Columbia.

The lobby entrance to the building is accessed at 1217 Taylor Street. The lobby ceiling is lined with the tin roof recovered from some of the original 2nd and 3rd floor space. The elevator off the lobby serves all three floors. The building has studios, 1 BR, 2 BR, and 3 BR apartments. The second floor apartments have ceiling heights of 11ft as did the original building. The third floor ceilings are almost 14ft high, again matching the original ceiling heights.