Broker, developer buys Main Street building at auction

A Main Street building that houses a child-abuse prevention organization and a group that works for the homeless has been auctioned for $837,000, the company that handled the sale said Tuesday.

The only bid for the two-story stucco-over-brick building near the Richland County courthouse was submitted May 13 by Tom Burch, said Carroll McGee, whose daughter runs McGee Auction Co. Efforts to reach Burch Tuesday were unsuccessful.

“We had other people interested, but they were trying to raise the funds,” McGee said of the auction. The sale is to close next week, he said.

Burch is a real estate broker and developer who worked in Columbia and now lives in Greenville, according to online profiles of him. Burch plans to make renovations to the building’s interior, but not the exterior, McGee said.

S.C. Children’s Trust director Sue Williams and Oliver Gospel Mission president and CEO Wayne Fields said they did not know the identity of the new owner until a reporter told them, nor have their organizations been informed of any impending changes.

Children’s Trust has a lease through August 2016, Williams said.

“We saw the (auction) sign and went outside and watched the auction,” said Williams, whose organization says it’s the state’s only statewide child-abuse prevention group.

Fields, whose facility for the homeless is at 1100 Taylor St., said the mission has a contract for its satellite administrative office in the building. He, too, said Oliver Gospel Mission has not been notified of any changes.

“We don’t know what our status will be,” Fields said. “There’s nothing to indicate that we’re being evicted.”

The building, which McGee said has a full basement, has other tenants in its office spaces.

This story was originally published May 26, 2015 at 8:12 PM with the headline "Broker, developer buys Main Street building at auction."