The building at 750 Meeting St. in West Columbia has been many things since it was built in the 1940s.

It started out as Lower Main Market before becoming a Dixie Home Store in 1951 (the chain that would later become Winn-Dixie). A furniture company and a tile store came later, and Charity Thrift took up residence in 2002 before the current resident, marketing agency Riggs Partners, moved in about 15 years ago.

But when it comes to local iconography, the building’s most impactful stretch came between the 1970s and 2001, when it was home to WECO Billiards, which lent its name to the pool-ball-bedecked sign along Meeting Street that has become one of the city’s most recognizable markers.

The sign has dilapidated and changed through the years, its posts rusted and its pool balls left dingy and discolored. But now, it’s returned to its former glory and is back lighting up the night in West Columbia. 

Through a partnership between Riggs Partners and the city government, the sign was taken down in September and refurbished by locally based company Flagship Signs. Restored to its post, the sign was unveiled and relit during a Jan. 10 ceremony.

“Ever since we moved into the building in ‘07 and took the time and resources to refurbish this building, we were also very interested in refurbishing the sign, not only because it's a very interesting complement to our building, but because we knew the historical significance of it,”  Teresa Coles, president of Riggs Partners, told the Chronicle. 

She added that the company’s desire to recognize and preserve the city’s history is reflected in what it chose to have emblazoned on the sign’s three word-ready rectangles — “West Columbia,” “South Carolina” and “29169,” the local zip code.

“We knew that West Columbia was going to be going through a renaissance in the years to come, and we felt that it was a really important historical icon for the community and a piece of art in and of itself given its design,” Coles said.

That renaissance has been seen prominently in recent years in the State Street area near the Congaree River, with additions like the Brookland luxury apartment complex and the city-owned interactive art park and market pavilion, and West Columbia’s push to extend this revitalization further up Meeting Street is key to its motivation for helping refurbish the sign.

City Council recently allocated $3.5 million in American Rescue Plan funds to pay for improvements along the corridor, as businesses such as WECO Bottle and Biergarten, the jazz club Chayz Lounge, and the pride bar WE’s have brought new activity in recent years.

According to Anna Huffman, the city’s director of public relations, the public-private partnership with Riggs involves the city taking on part of the project’s cost, though she said final numbers ( including how big the city’s share of the expense will be) aren’t yet available.

“The city's [2018] citywide revitalization plan spoke to focusing on things in the community that could be brought up and made to make a sense of place in the area,” Huffman said of why it made sense for the city to chip in. “This sign plays to that sense of place. It is something that is an icon.”

Mayor Tem Miles echoed this sentiment.

“We've used the WECO name for a long time in West Columbia,” he said. “That name has been around forever. The sign is iconic in West Columbia. ... And I'm very, very excited to see the sign be refurbished and be put back in good shape and to continue to serve as a landmark for everybody who comes over here.”

As to the refurbishment itself, Joel Merrill, managing partner at Flagship Signs, said the project stood out among others the company has done, both because of the uniqueness of the sign itself and its prominence in the community.

“Just the overall cool factor of a really old sign,” he said of what made the project interesting. “We found parts in there that were 40 years old, 50 years old. That craftsmanship that went into the original is not what you see these days.”

Merril said the fabrication process to replace necessary parts was time-consuming and took about a month to complete. Especially tricky were the pool balls.

“Once they came apart, they basically fell apart,” he explained. “So we had to make new ones.”

Round globes aren’t a part of most signs they deal with, so it was a challenge to make sure they were handled properly and came out looking right when they were painted, Merrill added.

But contributing to the landscape of the city made the process rewarding.

“Several of us are from the West Columbia area,” Merrill said. “The WECO sign’s an iconic piece of our history, our childhood.”

Kailee Kokes contributed reporting to this article.