David Weick, who works for Bob Florence Contractor Inc. in Topeka, strips away some of the old wire mesh that holds mortar together on Thursday at Weaver's Department Store, 901 Mass. Weick uncovered some old windows behind stucco while he was on scaffolding about 30 feet above the sidewalk.

Bob Florence Contractor Inc. has hung drywall at Hoch Auditorium and spread plaster at the Lied Center.

But getting the chance to erect scaffolding and hammer away at aging stone-embedded stucco in the heart of downtown Lawrence is more than a job for the folks at the Topeka-based company, which has roots dating to 1898.

It’s a chance to reminisce, rejuvenate and – during breaks, anyway – relax a bit.

“Lawrence is a great town, is all I can say,” said Adam Florence, the company’s vice president, who attended Kansas University in the early 1980s. “Lawrence’s downtown is by far the neatest downtown that I have seen. It makes it fun.”

• 6News video: Weaver’s getting an updated exterior (08-11-05)

The company this week started its latest project: removing and replacing a 30-year-old stucco exterior at Weaver’s Department Store, itself a longtime fixture at 901 Mass.

Adam Florence, vice president of Bob Florence Contractor Inc. in Topeka, expects his company's work on the outside of Weaver's Department Store to last until the beginning of September.

On Thursday, the Florence crew had picked away at most of the inch-thick layer of Bondco stucco on the east side of the building, above its awning.

The old stucco, acting as a mortar, held river rocks that had been shot into the mix with a hopper gun, Adam Florence said. The newly exposed area above the awning will be coated with a new synthetic stucco, an acrylic material that will not include any rocks.

The project is expected to last through the beginning of September, he said, and Florence employees already know they’re handling a high-profile job.

“There’s way too many people standing around, too close,” Adam Florence said Thursday at the work site, where fallen stucco was being shoveled off the awning and into a truck bed. “We have a guy on the ground just to keep people back.”