The air will soon be sweet in downtown Washington, as a new bakery will be moving in to the old City Hall building on North Market Street.

Rachel Kathleen Midgette, owner of Rachel K’s Bakery, put in the highest bid for the City of Washington-owned building, after an initial bid of $20,100 by another interested party in July. In August, Midgett offered the city $22,000 for the property, a bid city officials accepted.

“It went through the upset bid process and there were no other bids,” said City Manager Brian Alligood, referring to the process in which potential purchasers of property are given 10 days to top an initial, or most recent, bid by 5 percent.

No other bids means Rachel K’s Bakery may close on the deal, and have a new downtown home, by the end of the month.

“We’d been looking for a place to open a bakery, for more space. And I really wanted it to be downtown,” Midgette said. “We decided we would take a chance and see if it works.”

Midgette said the plan is to install a commercial kitchen and upfit the interior of the historic building, and make the bakery accessible by entrances on both Market Street and the parking lot in back. Rachel K’s Bakery will offer a sit-down venue, as well as take out, for both breakfast and lunch. Menu items will include her specialties: chocolate croissants, giant cinnamon buns, hand-rolled bagels and lemon almond twists, among a variety of other items, including artisan breads, bagel sandwiches in the morning and more elaborate homemade roast beef and turkey sandwiches come lunchtime.

“We’re not real fancy — we’re a pretty downhome kind of place,” Midgette said.

Since 2010, Midgette has been baking up a storm: fresh breads, bagels and baguettes; cakes and pastries. The name may be familiar to anyone who has attended Washington’s Saturday Market or Greenville’s Umbrella Market in previous years, or stepped into the Highland Drive coffee shop Perfect Perks for breakfast or lunch in the past year.

But all that baking over the past several years has been fact-finding mission, testing the demand for Rachel K’s goods.

“We’re trying to do it where it’s sustainable — where we don’t crash and burn,” she said.

Midgette said she’s hoping to open the bakery by the end of the year.

“We’re really excited about it. We’ve had amazing support from the community,” Midgette said.