Ricky Faircloth has purchased the Fordham Hotel Building on Water Street from the Bainbridge Downtown Development Authority with the intention of renovating the building to include retail space on the bottom floor and apartments on the top two floors.

“It’s just got a lot of character to it,” Faircloth said. “It’s going to be a big project and a lot of work and you’re going to have to be dedicated to doing it and making it work…Me being a builder and being able to do a lot of the work myself I can do it and make it more cost effective.”

The Downtown Development Authority has owned the building for ten years. It was originally built as the Fordham Hotel in 1903 and the last tenet was the Nelson Piano Company.

“Having someone of his expertise buy the building and bring it back to life will help kick start what we have going on downtown,” Amanda Glover, the Executive Director of the Downtown Development Authority, said. “It’s a great shell of a building for what he wants to do.”

Fairlcoth said that his hope is to finish the remodel of the bottom floor in the next few months to allow a beauty shop to move into one of the retail space. He will then begin renovating the upper floors. “I want to put six [apartments], three per floor,” Faircloth said. “We’re in the process of working on plans right now. I think we have the square footage to make it work out.”

The goal is to finish the full renovation in the next year to year and a half.