LEWISTON – Lawyer Bill Hardy has an appreciation for the past, but it’s the future he’s making an investment in.

After 25 years in business at his Lisbon Street address, he decided it was time for the office to get a facelift. The space he shares with five other lawyers and their staff is undergoing a $500,000 renovation that will restore the facade of Odd Fellows Block while renovating and refurbishing its interior.

“We’ve been here for 25 years and figured it was time,” said Hardy of the decision to invest in the building. “We’re in Lewiston for the long haul.”

Hardy, Wolf & Downing, which specializes in personal injury law, also has offices in Portland, but considers Lewiston its headquarters.

Hardy said he and his partners wanted to maintain the building’s historic integrity and worked with architect Bill Hamilton on the design. Built in 1876, the Odd Fellows Block has an Italianate roof with strong cornice brackets and Victorian Gothic windows that make it distinct among Lewiston’s downtown commercial buildings. It’s less than a block away from the newly restored Music Hall, which is now the home of 8th District Court.

Currently, the building’s entrance is encrusted in plywood, but plans call for the restoration of the building to its original storefront look. Large glass display windows will be built at street level and buttressed with granite columns. Two new sets of mahogany doors will provide street access: one to a new conference room and the other to the office’s relocated reception area.

An elevator also is being installed to allow second-story access without having to climb the set of steep steps that now extend from the street level to the second-floor reception area. When complete, the project will add about 5,600 square feet of space to the office.

“It’ll be great. It’ll make a big difference,” Hardy said.

Work began three weeks ago when crews from Morin Construction started gutting what used to be the New England Music Co. storefront. To their surprise, the building revealed a little hidden history. Workers found posters from the old Priscilla Theater and a train schedule from 1891 wedged as shims beneath the floor. Several canceled 2-cent George Washington stamps were found in the walls. Hardy said they plan to preserve, mount and display the historical tidbits once the work is finished.

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