The McCrory Building on Capitol Street soon might be the new home of Bailey and Glasser.
CHARLESTON - The Charleston Urban Renewal Authority recently accepted the bid of law firm Bailey and Glasser to purchase the former McCrory's department store building on Capitol Street.
Bailey and Glasser has 90 days from March 15 to inspect the building before it must decide whether to go through with the purchase or not.
Both sides, though, are optimistic for a deal.
"If we want it, it's ours," Bailey and Glasser Office Adminstrator Chuck Little said. "We have 90 days to sign an actual purchase contract with CURA. We're looking over it all, dotting the 'I's and crossing the 'T's."
Little said the firm has outgrown its current building and will make use of the McCrory building's three floors. Those floors had been used for nothing more than storage since the building was constructed approximately 88 years ago, according to CURA Director Pat Brown.
"It's certainly one of the most unique buildings, architectural-wise, on Capitol St.," he said. "It was one of the first buildings renovated in the mid-1980s."
The building became a Rite Aid store when McCrory's, which had moved in from across the street in 1999, went bankrupt in 2001. The Charleston Urban Renewal Authority bought the building for $500,000 from the Geary Trust after a lawsuit was settled between it and Rite Aid in late 2005.
The Authority purchased the building after hearing rumors that it might be demolished once the lease issues were settled.
Bailey and Glasser was the only group in serious consideration to be the building's next owners and will have to pay $525,000. The firm has nine attorneys, notably Benjamin Bailey and Brian Glasser
"We need more people, and we don't have any place to put them," Little said.