Some History
In 1993, the City of Aiken spent $75,000 on what was billed as “a major facelift” to the circa 1963 Smith Hazel Recreation Center. The job entailed replacing two aging tennis courts, updating the facade, removing the fencing, painting the interior, upgrading the lighting, and repainting the lines in the parking lot.
With this work occurring, as it did, in the wake a recent decision by the City to invest $2.3 million to build a second, major recreation facility on the southside, some saw the facelift as more of an appeasement than an effort to address the long-standing need for more recreational opportunities on the northside. Councilwoman Lessie Price spoke for many when she said at the time, “We want to elevate the recreational programs on Aiken’s northside to the level of the southside.”(1)
In 1994-95, the City of Aiken built the $2.3 million baseball and softball field complex (Phase I) at Citizens Park on Aiken’s southside. Five years later, another $7 million was proposed for Citizens Park, plus over $3 million in upgrades for the circa 1975 H. Odell Weeks Activity Center to include a 16-court tennis complex and pro shop, a new gymnasium, and $200k skateboard park.
In 2004, City officials decided it was time to talk about building a recreational facility on Aiken’s northside. The original $4 million slated for park facility got trimmed by $1 million for other projects. It was decided that the old City dump would be a good place this facility. (2) And for the next 10 years, that’s where the plans for a northside park stood.
In 2014, an Aiken Standard headline read: “Progress Made on Northside Recreation Facilities.” (3) The word, “progress,” referred not to forward momentum on physical construction during the prior 10 years, but to a decision by the City to collaborate with Clemson University, which had been tasked with guiding the City’s path that now included $2.6 million allocated to build a park or open space on the the old City dump plus another $2 million for a possible recreational facility. It is important to note the use of he word “facility” in this headline and in other discussions of a northside park over the years, as this word was to disappear.
Public input and feedback — deemed imperative to Clemson’s ability to guide the City’s path — was solicited and gathered. A year earlier, the Clemson University Department of Landscape Architecture had created a concept presentation titled, “Northside Park.” The illustration below, from this document, gives visual reference to how a park would be built atop a city dump, as well as a description of some of the challenges inherent to such a project. The rest of the document illustrates the verbiage necessary to market such a product.
Councilwoman Gail Diggs is to be commended for her departure from other council members in articulating her concerns over the environmental safety of building the park on top of the old City dump, as well as her belief that a northside recreation facility should aspire to match the standards of the Odell Weeks Activity Center.
Dump, Landfill: Tomato, Tomatoh
For most of the century preceding this decision to turn this property into a park, the City landfill was called the City dump — the place for disposing everything from household garbage to business and industrial waste, broken-down appliances and equipment, furniture and mattresses; building materials, tree stumps, leaf mould, and even dead animals. For most of its history, the dump’s contents burned in open burn piles. As people who lived on the northside could attest, these burn piles permeated the neighborhood air with the stench and smoke of smoldering trash. In 1970, the practice of burning was officially phased out to transition to burying the trash. The term “landfill”was phased in at this time, but the burning continued. In 1986, the City began phasing out the landfill entirely, because there was simply no more space on that property to bury trash.
At the culmination of the Clemson University 2014 collaboration — with input from the community, local non-profits, educators, and other interested stakeholders taken, collated, and evaluated — Dr. Bob Brookover of Clemson University suggested, in fact, two facilities for the northside: a senior-youth center and a recreation park. The specific recommendations for these facilities are laid out in the table below, which was published in the Aiken Standard. It is important to note that, at this time, the City dump was still in the picture.
Among the key requests from the northside citizens for a recreation park was a facility accessible by bicycle, walking, or car. This is why the lands on Rutland Drive, across from Aiken High School, were deemed desirable by respondents.
Anchors and Chains
In 2015, one year after the Clemson collaboration — and eleven years after the original decision to build the northside park on the City landfill — it was announced that the idea of building a park on the landfill had been “quickly squashed” by City Council members due to concerns about building a park on top of a landfill.
This revision of history could be overlooked, if not for the fact that the ultimate decision on Aiken’s northside recreation facility was to not build one. Somewhere along the way between 2014 and 2015, talk of a northside recreation facility with a gym had been entirely replaced with talk of a walking trail. Or perhaps an open space. Maybe an an amphitheater.
Toward this end, the City purchased a 118-acre tract of land two miles outside of the city limits on Hwy 1 North. Accessibility by pedestrians or bicycle was apparently not a factor. Ground broke in late 2017. Shortly into the 6-month work of razing the trees and grading 40 acres of land to accommodate the walking trail, playground, amphitheater, multi-use field, and “plenty of parking,” it was decided to name it Generations Park. Later, it became the Beverly D. Clyburn Generations Park.
Much of the City’s attention to the park for the next three years would be directed toward the helter-skelter process of annexing the park into the City, then de-annexing the park, the re-annexing it back into the City via a curious thread of land incorporated into the mix.
A minor amount of energy has gone into rebranding this park which, for a relatively small sum of money, managed to put to rest any talk of a recreational facility. Nowadays, City officials refer to it as an “anchor” and “economic driver” to facilitate growth and development — houses, hotels, businesses, chains and such — between the City and the interstate. It was suggested that interstate travelers might even be drawn by the park to detour off the interstate down Hwy 1 and onward to spend some money in Aiken.
Phase 2 of the Beverly D. Clyburn Generations Park
The plan for second phase development of the park — the funding for which had previously been included in the City’s Capital Projects Sales Tax list — was killed the same month the park opened. The reason given was price. City officials offered that, perhaps in the future, money could be found through a private-public development partnership.
We can long ponder what the City actually accomplished with this sleight of hand, but one thing we needn’t ponder is whether, at the end of this 30-year deferment, the people of Aiken ever received the long-awaited recreation facility on the northside.
Ponder, too, the fact that the City’s envisioned path forward looks very similar to the path backward.
Back to the Future
According to the 2022 Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Need Assessment and Strategic Plan that was drawn from yet another Clemson University collaboration — this one taking place in October-November 2021 — the City should look to divest more on the northside and invest more on the southside. The recommendations that followed, while intended to be used only as a guide, give a clear picture on where the priorities lie, going into the future.
For one, it is recommended that the City determine whether there are certain parks and facilities it should “divest” of. Consideration is recommended on the future of these parks: Sumter Street Park, Gyles Park, Charleston Street Park, Perry Park, and the Aiken Co. Farmers Market.
The recommendation for Smith Hazel is another facelift to include new windows, doors and HVAC; a retrofit of existing space to accommodate senior rooms and a fitness area; a new lobby, reception room and bathroom, and a place to store tables and chairs.
It is recommended that Beverly D. Clyburn Generations Park should “largely remain an open space.” No mention of a “facility” of any kind. No gymnasiums — not even an outdoor basketball court.
The recommendation for Odell Weeks Activity Center is to demolish the facility and rebuild it to include 4 gymnasiums; a multi-use room to accommodate 500 people; fitness and wellness space to accommodate aerobics, spin, cardio, strength, functional fitness space; an indoor climbing wall, a walking track, areas and rooms suitable for day camp programs; locker rooms, restrooms, concession/vending, and retail space; consolidated offices for most management and program staff; plus add 2 additional basketball courts and 6 additional pickle ball courts. Six of the hard-surface tennis courts at the Weeks Tennis Center are recommended to be converted to clay.
The recommendations for Citizens Park include 4 to 6 new multi-use rectangular fields, including two with artificial turf, plus stadium seating and a new building to accommodate restroom and office space needs; a rebuilding of the walking track; a new maintenance, equipment and storage shed; new and upgraded lighting and scoreboards, and an irrigation system for one of the baseball fields.
First the Bad News
Present-era City leadership does not appear to have our backs.
Now the good news
We can change this trajectory by participating in local government, by learning about local issues, by attending City and County Council meetings, by using our voices, by organizing grassroots, citizen-based efforts to ampify our voices, by supporting potential candidates to replace elected officials who do not have our backs.
Also, there is actually a large sum of money from the plutonium settlement that has been allocated for economic development on the northside, where the need is ongoing for economic development that actually meets the needs of the people who live there.
There are better things to ponder, beginning with the need for the City to support the northside, just like they do the southside and the westside. This includes supporting efforts to repair and preserve, rather than demolish houses in established, historic neighborhoods that have been, for generations, a vital part of the Aiken community.
A smoldering dump should never be placed next to anyone’s neighborhood, nor should anyone’s children be expected to play in a park built on top of that dump. This is not rocket science.
One of the problems with running a city like a business is that leaders tend to lose touch with the human element of a city; everything begins to be measured by how much profit it can generate. No one ever felt the need to justify the existence a basketball or pickleball court at Odell Weeks by to its ability to generate profit for the City or local businesses. Why is the northside park being viewed in these terms? And why, after 30 years spent talking about building a recreation facility on the northside — and some 4 years after breaking ground — is there still not a single basketball, pickleball, or tennis court at Generations Park?
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(1) West, Otto, “Smith Hazel Center Getting Major Facelift.” 5 August, 1993. p. 1B. The Aiken Standard.
(2) Lord, Philip. “Talk Mounts to Convert Landfill into Park.” 6 February 2004. p. 2A. The Aiken Standard.
(2) Schechter, Maayan. “Progress Made on Northside Recreation Facilities.” 14 November 2014. pp 1A+ The Aiken Standard.
