PROCTORVILLE — Two Proctorville businessmen have taken the old Heck’s store building at the foot of the 31st Street Bridge that connects the village to Huntington with the goal of turning it into a viable commercial property again. They have christened it the

Proctorville Plaza.

Real estate entrepreneurs, Fred L. Hayes and Danny Holschuh, bought the 65,000 square foot building that also housed at one time the Quality Farm and Fleet Store about 15 years ago.

Renovations, the cost of which Holschuh declined to detail, have been going on for several months.

Last week the first store in the plaza opened. Scratch and Dent Appliances is the brainchild of Matt and Tim Salser of Cross Lanes, W.Va., who saw a market niche for new appliances that can be sold at a low cost because of a “scratch or dent.”

“You will find all the same appliances in Home Depot, Lowe’s, Big Sandy for just a fraction of the prices,’’ Matt Salser said.

The store offers top of the line brand names such as Maytag, Jenn-Air, KitchenAid and Amana.

“We get them straight from the manufacturers,” Salser said. “Most go between a cabinet and if scratched and dented you wouldn’t see it.”

The brothers saw this concept marketed in larger metropolitan areas and thought it would work in the Tri-State. They opened their first store three years ago in Huntington, near the West End, then opened a second store in Charleston about a year ago.

The move to Proctorville came about when they outgrew the Huntington store.

The two stores enable consumers “to buy the high-end product without breaking the band,” Salser said.

Their clientele?

“It’s pretty much 18 years old and up.

Anybody who is going to be out on their own.”