For 50 years, the orange Hollier Rexall Drugs neon sign did its job in Abbeville by letting residents know where the drug store was located. Today, the future of the sign is uncertain.

The Holliers operated the drug store located in downtown Abbeville on State Street. Hollier retired and sold the building to the Vermilion Parish Police Jury a couple of years ago.

The building has sat empty, but that is about to change in the next two weeks.

The Police Jury approved $18,000 to remodel part of the old drug store and the renovation will begin in November. The Clerk of Court is going to take advantage of the 2,000 square foot area by using it for archive space.

“We have outgrown the court house,” said Clerk of Court Diane Meaux Broussard. “The active records have been scanned into the computer. There will be no one working in here.”

Dwayne Davidson is the contractor hired to build shelves to place archive papers from the Clerk’s office on. He will also build a new wall.

In the next two weeks, parish prisoners will be in the building ripping out shelves and then around three prisoners are expected to paint the walls. Using the prisoners is expected to save the parish thousands of dollars.

Tuesday morning, Col. Kirk Frith of the Sheriff’s Office, Diane Meaux Broussard, the clerk of court, Dwayne Davidson, Police Jury President Wayne Touchet and Charlene Beckett with the City met with architect Marshall Sellers to speak about the remodeling.

Then the question came up, “What about the sign in the front?”

Davidson said if no one wanted it, he would take it down and bring it home because he collects old signs.

Beckett and Broussard walked outside to look at the sign. Broussard said he did not care if the sign stays or goes. She just wants the space inside the building, which is over 100 years old.

Beckett, on the other hand, has a plan for the sign. She would like to take it down, repair it, clean it and then place it back up. However, she wants the sign placed on one end of the building instead of directly in the middle. That way the wording, “Godard” that is on the building can be seen. The Godard family used the building as a drug store before the Hollier family.

The one major hiccup with repairing the sign and placing it back up is money. The Police Jury only budgeted $18,000 for the project. To take down, fix and put back up the sign may take a few thousand dollars.

Davidson informed Beckett that his bid was not for any work on the outside, just the inside. So for now, while construction is being done on the inside, the sign will stay put.

But Beckett is hoping to have some kind of fund raiser that will go towards repairing the Hollier sign and putting it back on the building.