Detail work: Putting the preservation pieces together.

Janie Campbell is the woman with the answers even when they aren't necessarily what clients want to hear.

Campbell, preservation consultant with Columbia law firm Rogers Lewis, is often the first stop for owners and developers seeking historic tax credits for upcoming projects. She's their guide through a labyrinth of painstaking paperwork and bureaucratic red tape, but she also often serves as a dispenser of cold reality.

"I always joke that I am simultaneously the most loved and hated person in any project, because I'm the one who does all the work to get the money, but I also call myself the dream crusher," Campbell said. "People are like, 'We want to have exposed brick this and exposed ceilings that,' and I'm like, 'Nope. Historically it had pressed-tin ceilings, so that's what you have to use,' or 'You need to restore the plaster, not remove it.' But often, what becomes the most problematic part of a project, for whatever reason, ends up being the coolest feature when it debuts."

The projects Campbell has spearheaded include Hotel Trundle, winner of state preservation awards and featured in Southern Living magazine's Hotel Collection since its 2018 opening, and the Hunter-Gatherer at Curtiss-Wright Hangar, which transformed a 1,300-square-foot former airplane hangar into the second location of a popular downtown brew pub in 2018. She's currently part of the team bringing to life the latest vision of Columbia developer Scott Middleton, the man behind the transformation of the 1600 block of Main Street into an enclave of entertainment and dining options.

Smoked, a restaurant which will offer smoked oysters and meats as well as microbrews, is being carved from the circa-1872 buildings at 1639-1643 Main St. It will join Middleton properties including restaurant and boutique bowling alley The Grand and Main Course, which features a live music venue and immersive gaming bays.

"This is kind of our first venture into just a solo restaurant," Middleton said during a December sneak peek at the property. "The 1600 block is becoming a destination place for entertainment and also for food. These buildings here have been in need of renovation and in need of repair for a long time."

The upscale casual restaurant, slated to be completed in early August, will occupy three bays. Two were previously home to a wig store and a cigar shop whose slipcover facades rendered the property a noncontributing building, or a structure which did not add to the area's...