Commercial Locksmith in Greenville, SC

West End warehouses

Greenville's West End grew up where Main, Pendleton and Augusta streets meet. After the Civil War it filled with cotton and fertilizer warehouses, and later with bottlers, auto agencies and repair shops. The city's preservation guidelines say the large, heavily built wood doors on those older warehouses should be kept, or copied exactly if one has to be replaced. Securing such a building often means fitting hardware to a heavy, oversized door rather than swapping the door out. Where door hardware is replaced in a preservation overlay district, the guidelines ask for commercial grade.

Downtown storefronts

Greenville's 2017 Downtown Design Guidelines call for maximum transparency at ground level and for security that does not depend on bars or grilles. For a storefront, that points away from bars across the glass and toward locks and other measures that leave the front open to view. Properties in the Downtown Design Overlay need a Certificate of Appropriateness before submitting for building permits, so a change that alters the exterior is worth raising with the city first. This is general information, not legal advice.

Houses that became businesses

The city describes the Pettigru Historic District as about half residential and half commercial, so a house built there in the early 1900s may now hold a studio, a firm or a shop behind its original doors. It may still have residential locks. Commercial-grade hardware suits the new use and matches what the guidelines ask for in preservation overlay districts.

Keys and turnover

Businesses lose track of keys through staff changes, departing tenants and contractors who kept a copy. Rekeying after each departure, a master key system on restricted blanks, or keypads with individual codes can each bring access back under control. In a request, include:

• the address and type of building
• how many doors, and what they are: glass storefront, steel back door, warehouse door
• whether you lease the space, and the landlord's approval if you do
• whether a master key system is already in place

See commercial locksmith, lock rekeying and the Greenville page.