After refurbishing commercial structures around the corner for their professional offices in 2001, the law firm of Daniel, Vaughan, Medley & Smitherman, PC, continues its commitment to the renaissance of downtown with the rehabilitation of this former department store. 

Actually, the building is comprised of several mercantile establishments dating from the first quarter of the 20th century. Belk Leggett, the department store which eventually absorbed all the storefronts now under renovation, opened its doors on Saturday, March 6, 1920.

It first occupied a former shoe store behind a 21-foot- wide facade at 430 Main Street. This was space newly- renovated after a May 1919 fire nearly gutted the entire three-story Dudley Block, which has anchored the corner of Main Street with North Union since 1901.

By the late 1920s, the store expanded three doors down into the former showroom of Clements, Chism & Parker (later Clements & Parker) which had moved to the Hotel Danville (now Danville House), built by the Clements family in 1927. Belk Leggett’s enlarged quarters at 416-424 Main (c1920) included all four stories of the red brick Georgian Revival-inspired commercial buildings of utilitarian traditional design popular between the world wars. 

Belk Leggett's dominance of the block was complete by the late 1930s, when Virginia Hardware left its old home at 426 Main Street, a fine example of early industrial design, c1912, with dramatic industrial windows bordered with green tile. 

Some 45 years later, after Belk Leggett relocated to Piedmont Mall in 1984, an amalgam of shops—the Downtown Mall—occupied much of the first-floor from 1986- 1989. From 1991-1996, the Gingerbread House adapted the space for its lines of decorative accessories. 

Now, these buildings promise to offer quality space behind restored facades in their newest incarnation as the River City Center, returning the 400 block to its historic roots as the heart of town.