Take a good look at the wall on the right side of the picture above. As of Tuesday afternoon, it no longer exists.

The Salvation Army Thrift Store, located next to the YMCA on Broad Street, is undergoing extensive renovations that will enlarge the area.

These renovations include a new roof, carpet, paneling and air conditioning, as well as the aforementioned removal of the wall to create a large room out of two smaller ones.

The first item to go was the roof, which was replaced in late June. It had been a comedy act prior to its removal, with water dripping onto the heads of employees and shoppers even while the sun was shining outdoors.

Garrett, manager of the thrift store, has been one of the employees who worked through the months prior to the renovations. Tuesday, he was helping out contractors while suffering the contained heat of a non-air conditioned building.

That, too, will be remedied, as soon as today.

Brewer has quickly learned during the process that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. After receiving bids from local contractors, he decided to be the general contractor for the project – something that he has never done before.

He was nervous at first, but found the subcontracting process to be very simple.

Due to taking over the contracting process himself, Brewer has been able to save money over the lowest bid that he was offered by professionals. He put the cost of renovating the thrift store at $89,000.

Despite the months of work and the process to get the building before that, Brewer believes that it is worth it. He said that sales at the thrift store increased more than 400 percent since the move from the Youth Development Center over three blocks to Broad Street in February 1999. There has also been an increase in the number of donations and people assisted as well.

The numbers show the amount of aid that the Salvation Army has been giving out. In the past two weeks, more than 1,400 items of clothing, each retailing at 99 cents, have been donated to people in the area.

Brewer is also working on getting out new donation boxes in the area. Currently, there are only two donation box locations, one at the Salvation Army office on Franklin Street and the other at the thrift store.

He is working is area merchants to get out the new boxes, which will have three-foot tall logos painted on them so they will not be confused with the green and white boxes for the Alabama Thrift Store, based out of Birimingham, that are also in the area.

The renovations on the thrift store are slated to be complete by mid-September. A grand re-opening will be held October 24 at noon.