By Kelly Cornelius
September 19, 2023

Last Thursday, and five months behind schedule, the Aiken Corporation finally released the results of a feasibility study which was funded by a $250K no-bid contract awarded by the City of Aiken to the Aiken Corporation.

This need to do a feasibility study arose in January 2023 after the announcement of the partnership of the City of Aiken with Savannah River National Lab (SRNL) to put a workforce development center on many of the failed Project Pascalis properties.

The long-awaited big reveal in this dog and pony show sadly lacked the dogs, the ponies, and even the actual lab. Six months after dedicating a quarter-million dollars to the Aiken Corporation’s pre-development contract all there is to show for it so far is a study that lacked pertinent data, lacked any mention of SRNL, and only led to further questions about the project, not the least of which were, “What is the Aiken Corporation?” and “What exactly do they do?” 

In the simplest terms, the Aiken Corporation is the development arm of the City of Aiken, a 501(c)3 organization “organized in 1995 exclusively for charitable purposes.” There are currently no elected officials on the Aiken Corporation’s board, giving this group of unappointed, private-sector individuals immense power over taxpayer-funded assets. 

From Pascalis 1.0 to Pascalis 2.0: A Brief History on the Would-Be SRNL Office Project

Details of Project Pascalis were rolled out to the public in March 2022, and by May had triggered lawsuits, ethics complaints, a citizens’ petition campaign, and a Pigs of Pigscalis gallery of political cartoons — all in an effort to stop this project which had already squandered $9.6 million taxpayer dollars and planned to demolish half a downtown block. The wildly unpopular Project Pascalis, whose time of death was officially called in September 2022, seemed to gain zombie powers as it was quickly but secretly resurrected into Pascalis 2.0 in the form of a poorly defined office complex for Savannah River National Laboratory.

Pascalis 1.0 also likely contributed to the August 2023 ousting of the incumbent Mayor Rick Osbon who had vigorously supported the project. Pascalis 1.0 was the brainchild of the Aiken Municipal Development Corporation (AMDC), which eventually suffered a similar fate as Project Pascalis, being officially dissolved in May of this year but not before Public Trust was destroyed.

After the seeming death/cancellation of Pascalis in late September 2022, the citizens of Aiken breathed a collective sigh of relief. Little did they know, but Aiken City officials had wasted no time in attending secret meetings and plotting the Pascalis 2.0 — the Bomb Plant Lab offices — on many of the same $9.6 million worth of taxpayer-owned Pascalis properties. As happened with Pascalis 1.0, there were no public meetings, just more secrecy in advance of the eventual rollout to the public. 

The Big Rollout

The big announcement was made on January 23, 2023 in the Mayor’s State of the City address. From the “zero lessons learned department,” the City announced its partnership with SRNL (Savannah River Nuclear Laboratory) to build the lab on many of the now failed Project Pascalis properties— despite the fact the properties were still owned by an embattled AMDC that lacked even a quorum to vote. Citizens would later learn that the Aiken Corporation had secretly contracted McMillan, Pazdan, Smith for this project way back in Dec of 2022, again, despite the fact that the properties were AMDC-owned at the time.

On February 6, 2023 citizens were invited to a “listening session” wherein they were introduced to KJ Jacobs from McMillan, Pazdan Smith, who announced the intention, complete with an April deadline, to do a feasibility study on the SRNL project.

On March 13th the City Council, ok, four members of the city council because three of them recused, voted to approve the 250K contract with the Aiken Corp for this work. According to the minutes

The Study’s Big Reveal

Six months into the $250k contract, one might have expected details, preliminary renderings, and answers to questions. Instead, we received 21 pages of vague assessments, lack of detail and generic blue boxes or massings for buildings. The report is actually only 14 pages of information as 7 of those pages were cover sheets.

To those of us concerned with a government takeover of the downtown, the attention to detail was underwhelming. Citizens who attended the meeting reported that no actual questions were answered. The long-awaited and long overdue results of that taxpayer-funded study came to a reveal that, well, bombed. It seems that the Aiken Corporation didn’t even bother to put lipstick on this nuclear pig.

The existing view of the proposed SRNL building, as seen from the porch of Casa Bella Italian Restaurant on Chesterfield Street. (Photo courtesy of Lee Doran Thornton).

The view of this same Chesterfield Street site as it would appear with the proposed, three-story, 36,000 sq. ft. building.

What Now?

It seems as if this bad idea went from being named Project Pascalis pushed by the AMDC to the SRNL project being pushed by the Aiken Corporation. The organizational names have changed, but the lack of transparency, the thoughtless spending, and the lack of accountability remain the same.

There are currently no elected officials on the Aiken’s Corporation board, giving this group of unappointed private-sector individuals immense power over taxpayer-funded assets. The track record with the Railroad Depot project and the Amentum building — both of which were plagued with expensive cost overruns and lack of communication and accountability — has never really been addressed, nor the questions answered.

Today, the questions continue. For instance, is SRNL even a consideration at this point? This controversial project, initially billed as “the community face of the laboratory,” was met with significant disapproval from the community after its January 23 announcement. By July — as evidenced by SRNL’s statement, triggered by this Fox 54 interview — SRNL showed a certain distance and lack of commitment to the process.

Also, how does the non-profit Aiken Corporation manage the large rent it hauls from its prized Amentum building? Too, we have to ask, was the DRB asleep at the wheel when they approved that building? Is the Aiken Corporation able to do business in light of it’s recent violation for failing to file a key financial report?

In the bigger picture, why can’t a city of roughly 32,000 residents be managed efficiently by elected officials rather than cooked-up entities like the now-defunct Aiken Municipal Development Corporation (AMDC) or the Aiken Corporation? My attendance at an Aiken Corporation meeting and my ongoing research leave me feeling that this is a form of shadow government. There is zero accountability to taxpayers and no avenue for public comment at their meetings.

For a City that can’t even manage to provide clean water to its residents, this latest twist in the Pascalis plot that is being pushed from a lame-duck agenda can only promise, if approved, to drain and squander yet more millions from the taxpayers’ pockets.  As revealed in the article, Project Labscalis Annual Operating Costs, the funding of the lab doesn’t stop at the $9.6 million overpayment for the properties, nor the $250K cost for for a bombed feasibility study. There would be a yearly baked-in subsidy that city residents would have to swallow, even as the water out of their faucets isn’t fit to sip.