NORTH AUGUSTA – The three-story building on 501 W. Martintown Rd. in North Augusta, where Jim Bush Flower Shop was located for 25 years before closing in February, is now owned by Austin Taylor and will be the new location of the North Augusta office of the Austin Taylor Insurance Agency.
“I’m actually going to move my insurance agency (the North Augusta location) there. We are going to occupy the top two floors,” said Austin Taylor, owner of the agency for a little over nine years.
The Austin Taylor Insurance Agency, which is a part of the North Augusta Chamber of Commerce, insures homes and automobiles with the top insurance companies in the country, and Taylor said he was looking for the perfect building for the agency’s offices in North Augusta. The agency also has locations in Martinez and Evans.
“I wanted an iconic-looking building in North Augusta. It was built in the 70s and is a unique structure,” Taylor said.
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The building, which has relatively high ceilings, was once a pharmacy before being a flower shop. The spacious bottom floor, when it was a flower shop, had a lot of wood paneling and frosty schoolhouse-style lamps with soft light. Charley Bush, former co-owner of the building, said the brick and wood used in the original pharmacy building were a lot older than 46 years and that the materials had been repurposed for its construction.
Part of the reason Taylor is moving his North Augusta office is he needed more space because of growth.
“In our North Augusta office, we just hired two new folks. We are out of space there. In total, we have 10 employees (this is counting the new ones),” he said.
Taylor said the closing on the building was two months ago, and they started promoting the move to the building on May 20 on social media. He said they hope to be open by the end of the summer – around August or September.
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“The outside is going to remain the same, and the inside is going to be remodeled for offices. We are going to add some walls for offices to make it work for us,” he said.
Taylor said, “Also, the bathrooms will have to be made ADA compliant, and everything will have to align with current city codes.”
Not only is Taylor moving his North Augusta office to another building, but he said he also bought a house in downtown North Augusta.
The bottom floor of Taylor’s new building, where the flower shop was, will soon be available to rent.
Taylor said, “Now that we have our permitting underway, I am going to look for somebody to rent the bottom floor and have somebody use it for their needs.”
For more information, go to https://Austintaylorinsurance.com.
