The News and Advance article dated June 21, 2010 by Brian Gentry:  

For the first time in nearly 25 years, construction crews will be on Main Street this summer to build something new.

Downtown barber Ronnie Stemmer Jr. plans to build and open a new barbershop on a vacant lot at 1101 Main St., next door to another barbershop.

Stemmer gathered with a group of family, friends and city officials Monday for a ceremonial groundbreaking. Actual construction could begin as early as Thursday and finish within a few months, said Vince Phelps, owner of VC Design & Build.

Stemmer said he chose a red brick design for the building so it would fit in with the historic nature of other downtown buildings. “I want to make it so it fits in like it’s always been here,” he said.

The building itself will be only 600 square feet, though a second floor and rear extension could be added later. It is a significant addition to a street where the average building is 95 years old, according to city property records.

“Downtown is building up, and I wanted to be a part of it,” said Stemmer, who currently rents a shop on the 1000 block of Main Street.

City records show that it’s been decades since a building replaced a vacant lot on Main Street. In the early 1980s, the former federal courthouse and a hotel that is now a Holiday Inn Select were built. A building at 810 Main St. was torn down and replaced in 1986 with the existing structure, which now houses Wachovia on its main floor.

Since then, there have been numerous renovation projects on Main Street, but not new buildings. In downtown Lynchburg as a whole, most structures built in the past 30 years have been government buildings and parking decks, not private investments.

“This is a whole plateau of new development downtown,” City Manager Kimball Payne said.

Payne said that when he became city manager about nine years ago, one of his goals was to see new, private construction downtown. “I think the market had to be right for it, and people had to be willing to make the investment,” Payne said.

Stemmer said he has planned and budgeted for his own building for several years. A few months ago, one of his customers introduced him to Phelps.

Phelps is building a medical office on Timberlake Road for a group of doctors, including a customer of Stemmer’s, who introduced them.

“It’s pretty interesting to go from building 17,000 square feet on Timberlake Road to building 600 square feet here,” Phelps said.