Design Review Board’s Parking Garage Discussion Closed to Citizen Input, Three Months After the Board Panned Another Chesterfield Street Proposal.
by Don Moniak
The Aiken Design Review Board will hold a “work session” at 5:30 p.m. this Tuesday, March 7th, to discuss a proposal by the City of Aiken to construct a $7 million, ~57,000 square foot, 162-space, three-story parking garage next to its new City Hall Municipal Building. The proposed location is directly across the street from a proposed multi-family private residential development that was heard by the board on December 6, 2022. The DRB did not forward that proposal to a formal hearing.
123 and 129 Chesterfield Street; The Parking Garage
As reported in “Structured Parking Solution for The Lab,” one of Aiken City Council’s top priorities for 2023 is a parking garage on Chesterfield Street, next to the new Aiken Municipal Building, and replacing the current parking lot. The proposed site is across the street from the Bella Casa Restaurant and adjacent to an older home repurposed into a law office.
The primary justification for this “structured parking solution” is the proposed Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) “Workforce Development” downtown office complex. A “feasibility study” for the lab facility was announced on February 6, 2023 by K.T. Jacobs of the architectural firm McMillan Pazden and Smith. Jacobs recently confirmed the firm is working for the Aiken Corporation, and not the City of Aiken.
While the preliminary results of the Aiken Corporation-sponsored study are not due until mid-April, City of Aiken staff have fast tracked the parking garage option ahead of the feasiblity study. The first item on the agenda for Tuesday’s ( March 7, 2023) Aiken DRB work session is:
Application# CERD23- 001039: Discussion with Applicant City of Aiken concerning the application requesting approval to construct a parking structure at 123 and 129 Chesterfield St.
The memorandum to the DRB is written by an employee of both the owner and applicant. In it, city planning staff member Rebekah Seymour wrote, in part:
“The proposed project would convert an existing surface parking lot into a three- story parking structure with access provided by a driveway on Chesterfield Street. The proposed structure would include: 165 parking spaces approximately 9′ x 20′ ( See Exhibit A). The Applicants are presenting the proposed project at an early stage in the planning process in order to obtain feedback from the Board and provide an opportunity for the public to be involved, early in the project. The Applicants request that a Special- Called Work Session be scheduled on March 23 for the application to be presented to the Board. More information on the proposed project will be available at this time.”
The memo’s description of the City as an “applicant” is somewhat contradicted by the presence of city contractor Cranston Engineering as the listed applicant in the package. Cranston submitted a mere two pages of supporting documentation, Exhibit A, to the DRB:
- a rough Master Plan for the parking garage (below); and
- a narrative in which “side property setbacks” are proposed at “xx feet,” an indication of the clear haste to gain early DRB approval.
For its part, the Design Review Board is opting not only to discuss the application two weeks earlier than requested, but has also chosen to shut off public involvement beyond spectatorship——contrary to the planning department memo. The work session is scheduled for Room 315, a small meeting space where thirty people make for a very crowded room.
Three members of the current five member DRB served on the board on March 1, 2022. On that day, the Board voted to demolish both the Beckman Building at 106 Laurens Street—where three existing small businesses were tenants—and the vacant Hotel Aiken. That decision was challenged in the Blake et al vs. City of Aiken et al lawsuit, in which the DRB as a whole remains a defendant in that litigation. The demolition approval was cancelled by the Board on December 6, 2022.
The Other Side of the Street: 124 and 126 Chesterfield Street
The same current five member board held another “work session” on December 6, 2022, for a private property application at 124 and 126 Chesterfield Street, South, adjacent to the popular Casa Bella Restaurant. On the agenda was a proposal to demolish an existing single-story brick building housing a former hair salon, and replace it with a three-story residential and retail building. Applicant and property owner Thomas Bossard submitted twenty pages of supporting documentation from his architectural firm.
But the application went no further than the work session, where DRB members panned the proposal and sent the applicant home with a link to the Old Aiken Design Guidelines. That discussion on December 6th included the following dialogue:
Board Member Ben Lott: “It doesn’t look like Aiken. It sits right next to historic Casa Bella restaurant. This doesn’t feel like it is going in the direction we are trying to maintain.
Thomas Bossard; “The South Building is next door.” (referring to the small office building next door and the duplexes next to it)
Ben Lott: “That is not the direction we want to take either…This is like something that would have been built in the 70’s, not sure we are trying to repopulate downtown with buildings from the 70’s”
Chairman McDonald Law: “We are making some subjective observations” and referred to page 59 of the Old Design Guidelines.
Board Member Katy Lipscomb: “You just need to fix the windows.”
Bossard: “Are you opposed to the brick?
McDonald Law: “No, not really. But you are sitting next to a two story frame historic house.”
Bossard was then dispatched back to his architect, and has yet to return before the Board with an updated application.
Tuesday’s DRB Work Session.
According to the planning department memo, the parking garage application “may be reviewed using the Old Aiken Design Guidelines specifically Section 2.1.3. Downtown Commercial- Type: Parking” beginning on page 11.”
The Design Guidelines for parking structures also end on Page 11. Whereas the 129-page guide contains nearly ten pages regarding signs, only a half page is dedicated to “structured parking,” the technical euphemism for a parking garage. (see below)
Whereas the City of North Augusta has chosen to prominently feature parking garages in its newer downtown and Riverside Village landscapes by building three of them, the City of Aiken remains free of them. While the proposed Aiken parking garage is less than half the size of the garage across from North Augusta’s modern municipal building, it will be larger than the new 33,229 square foot, three-story City Hall municipal building.
The design guidelines have seldom been applied, and never in a block with residential use. This time the proposed site is on the same block where a proposed residential building was panned by DRB critics as having too many windows, being incongruous to an historic frame building restaurant, being too “seventies” like, and “not “looking like Aiken.”
The response of the DRB to the hastily arranged application for a parking garage on the same block will be closely watched. If the DRB opts to keep the proceeding off the city’s You Tube channel, it is likely that citizens will take video documentation into their own hands; in order to monitor the consistency of the board on this single section of a busy city block.
(Comments and questions for the Design Review Board can be submitted to staff liason Rebekah Seymour at rseymour@cityofaiken.gov. Readers of the Aiken Chronicles are invited to forward their comments to the DRB to Don Moniak at eurekascresearch@gmail.com)
How many people have considered making the old hospital a hotel and making the old hotel apartments?
Seems like an excellent idea to me!
So…we will lose 41 parking places in the existing lot and very likely the 15 street spaces on the southbound western side of Chesterfield and gain a gross of 162, so a net gain of 106 parking places for $7M? That’s a whopping $66,037 per parking space gained. I’m assuming we will also lose the street parking directly on Chesterfield’s Southbound lane West side because that is the only vehicular access to the pricey parking monolithic monstrosity.
The 162 parking spaces will all be accessed (cars going in and cars exiting into Southbound traffic) from Chesterfield Southbound, just about 100 feet from the Richland Chesterfield intersection?
So, you’ll either be driving south on Chesterfield across Richland ( unlikely) or you’ll be spending sometime making the cumbersome u-turn from northbound Chesterfield across, then back across Richland, or you’ll be turning right from Richland’s eastbound lane, or left across Richland from Richland’s westbound lane….
That’s complicated, but it’s pretty obvious that if anyone wants to use this very pricey parking garage, they’ll need to be dedicated to the task to be able to get into it. This will cause the intersections of Chesterfield and Richland and Chesterfield and Park to have substantially increased traffic all slowly driving across the pedestrian’s sidewalk into the narrow access in and out of the garage.
Please note how much bigger the monolithic monstrosity pricey parking garage is than our current City Hall. Also, take note that a 30’ Alley will be all of the space left between the two high buildings.
Has Larry Johnson verified this math? Lol…And they were adamant on telling us that the Bomb Plant Lab on Newberry St was “not a done deal” and that nice architect was just starting his feasibility study when he asked us to comment on nothing because he had nothing to show us the night of Feb 6th so now all of a sudden the garage to support the Not a done deal Bomb Plant Lab is already going in front of the DRB? …..Boris and Natasha can’t even feign going in the right order.
On tonight’s episode of Failed Project Pascalis we examine the cost per urinal …oops
We mean parking space.
Thanks so much Lisa for all you’ve done to save historic downtown and for staying true to the cause.
Larry’s too busy whining about Martin’s pigs.
He stays busy with that project😉
Sure am missing that guy now that I re-blocked him.
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you got til it’s gone ….maybe you can unblock him for math verification only? As for the Pigs they are fabulous! Some people might not be able to grasp the importance and significant impact political satire has especially when dissent from the regime might not be popular among subjects of said regime….. oops I mean said industry.
I especially like the ones in horizontal stripes and the one with the Piggy Law certificate on the wall.
Explain to me how the tax payer funded committes commissions, and councils can hold meetings which are closed to the tax payers or “open to the public” but do not allow tax payer input.
As for the proposed new garage, how is that in keeping with the architectural integrity of downtown Aiken that receives a lot of official lip service? Has the downtown overlay plan been officially cancelled? The latest proposal looks more like an airport hanger than a part of a downtown preservation project.
Thanks, again, to Mr. Moniak for a revelatory and timely report involving the furtive activities of the various vultures (City officials and others) circling city-center Aiken. In their customary fashion, DRB members have let it be known that the great unwashed (i.e., “ordinary” citizens) are not welcome at their pow wows.
After the City spent an obscene amount on the new municipal building, this monstrosity would ruin any aesthetic that was gained for Chesterfield St. Again, where is the Master Plan? What are the boards afraid of, preventing open and public involvement.
The old saw, “follow the money” applies here. Somewhere in this rush to develop downtown are financial winners, just as Ray Massey was to be with Pascalis. Question is, who are they?
“Follow the (taxpayers’) money (down the drain)” should be a first investigative principle when the shenanigans involve Aiken City Council, various City boards/commissions, Aiken Chamber of Commerce and, particularly in this instance, Aiken Corporation. Aiken Corporation seems to be the sponsor of the SRNL “workforce development” building proposed for Laurens St., and is cheerleading the construction of a parking garage for that facility. Interestingly, the Aiken Corporation website https://aikencorporation.org does not contain any hint as to the names of the human beings who may be associated with that entity. I understand that one Arthur W.(aka, Buzz) Rich is the leader of the Aiken Corporation, a fellow who was also an ex officio commissioner of the disgraced AMDC, before all of the AMDC commissioners either resigned or were replaced.
Well, seems to me this is just a pigscalis in a poke but Boris and Natasha forgot the poke! Project Pigscalis 2.0 Nuclear Edition ….How about Bomb Plant Lab Parking Garage for the Bomb Plant Lab? Like Piggy 1.0 it appears officials have deconstructed the plan and are trying to get parts passed separately then re-assemble them on the other side. Recall with Project Piggy the DRB voted to demolish the Historic Hotel ( at the request of the City Attorney’s Law partner ) but it was the City Council that gave away Newberry Street to the development company represented by the City Attorney’s Law partner oh and it was the AMDC that picked the winning developer ( the City Attorney’s Law partner) before the RFP went out and hey, wasn’t Cranston involved with Project Pascalis as well? I remember seeing them on the financial page and wasn’t Buzz Rich an AMDC member also the Aiken Corp guy and who did that nice architect tell me in my email back from him had commissioned the current feasibility study? Oh yeah the Aiken Corp. So a former AMDC member is now in charge as the Aiken Corp for the feasibility study for the Bomb Plant Lab and the engineering firm for Piggy is now the Applicant for the Bomb Plant Lab Parking Garage oh pardon me the “structured parking solution.”
I suffered through the last workshop at the DRB the room was completely packed to see Tim Obriant’s obedience clinic as he sung the praises of DIR as he gave the hotel update promising more than once to Do It Right! ( just curious…..was he let out of the lawsuit?)
The close quarters made that performance hard to watch and it made it hard to hide a snicker or two for the item we actually attended for the Train car trailer park.
Funny how the city seems so worried about where we will park our cars downtown but they don’t seem to care a bit where we will park our behinds at a meeting because if they don’t know this parking garage will draw a big crowd and require the regular meeting room they have zero common sense …..are these the people we want picking out the window dressings let alone deciding on a Bomb Plant Lab Parking Garage? They,, The Historic Preservation Board thought demolishing a Hotel they had just voted to make a historic structure just a few years earlier was a good idea and they are now charged with whether to approve a bomb plant lab parking garage ……I have a bad feeling their most burning question of the evening will be what color historic paint does the engineering firm have in mind for it?
Well said, Kelly! I wonder: Where to buy historic-colored lipstick for pigs? And do they carry anything in a radioactive magenta?
Hahah love it Laura, radioactive magenta 🙂 Perfect color for Nuclear Piggy! And wake up people they say it’s going to take 3M to
fix the Fairfield bridge but only 7M to build that monstrosity Bomb Plant Parking Garage that dwarfs the Municipal building? Something is amok with this cheesecake!