Also: Still no appraisals of Pascalis Properties, and City of Aiken continues to block release of Pascalis properties records.
by Don Moniak
December 6, 2023.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request (1) the City of Aiken has disclosed nine documents and reports from 2023 that are related to the Project Pascalis properties, including the Hotel Aiken, the Taj Aiken Restaurant, and the McGhee Building; aka as CC Johnson Drug Store. In total, work expenditures came close to $100,000 in expenditures; incurred in addition to the $250,000 contract between the City of Aiken and Aiken Corporation.
Most notable is the September 2023, Hotel Aiken Stabilization Report, from Bennett Preservation and Engineeering. The purpose of the analysis was, in part, to analyze two options for future use:
“In the first scenario, the structure is reused as a hotel or as a light residential structure without significant changes to either the use or the general construction. In the second scenario, the building is either reused for a heavier use classification, such as office use, or it is reused for residential use, but with significant weight increases, or with a need for significantly stiffer floor systems, such as might be required to support brittle finishes.”
The overall conclusion by Bennett is:
“We conclude that, overall, the building is relatively lightly framed, but if areas of deterioration are addressed and specific areas are strengthened, the building could be used for a residential reuse similar to that for which it was originally designed.
If, on the other hand, the use of the building were to be changed, for example to office use, or even a modern, relatively heavy hotel use with significant weight in the guest rooms and brittle finishes and tile floors in the bathrooms, strengthening or supplementing of the floor framing and vertical load carrying systems would be appropriate, as would additional perpendicular shearwalls within the building to carry the additional seismic load.”
Also within the records disclosure are “as built” laser scan illustrations of the Hotel Aiken and adjacent Richland Avenue buildings; and the contractual letters of agreement for all the project work.
The documents released are in the table, with links, below:
| 0654_001.pdf, MPS Summary of Bennett |
| 2023-05-03_201-213 Richland Ave_As-Built.pdf, showing As-Built laser scans for the McGhee Building and Taj Aiken Building |
| 2023-09-21 Hotel Aiken Stabilization Report.pdf, A 53-page Report on Structural Stabilization of the Hotel Aiken by Bennett Preservation and Engineering, dated September 9, 2021 |
| 2023-03-27 Hotel Aiken SDs Proposal (002).pdf , Bennett’s proposed agreement from March of 2023, estimated as $24,785. |
| QRC Service Proposal – 100 Laurens St SW Aiken SC – McMillan Pazdan Smith.pdf, the Quality Reality Capture proposal for laser scans of the Hotel and other Richland Ave buildings. |
| 230323 _ Aiken Proposals – w DM Signature.pdf, MPS/City of Aiken letters of agreement from March 2023 , first reported in $148,000 for What…. |
| 201-213 Richland Ave Restaurant Space Analysis_R21.pdf, an analysis of Richland Avenue properties for use as restaurants. |
| 2023-05-03_Hotel Aiken_As-Built.pdf, showing some results from the QRC laser scan. |
| QRC Service Proposal – 203 Richland Ave W – McMillan Pazdan Smith.pdf, a second QRC proposal. |
No Appraisals.
In response to a request for appraisals of Pascalis project properties, the City of Aiken reported there are no appraisals to date. (Figure 1)
Still exempt.
In response to a request for unredacted version of the May/June 2021 comparison table for Pascalis properties proposals and copies of all amended Purchase and Sale Agreements with RPM Development Partners,LLC, the City of Aiken declared the records as still exempt under FOIA regulations (Figure 2). The original Purchase and Sale Agreement from December 2021 was discovered being mistakenly online in the City’s document repository in November 2022, and subsequently released in Downtown Aiken Half-Price Sale.
(1) FOIA Request #364-2023 was filed on October 30, 2023, and asked for:
“Pertaining to the three McMillan Pazdan and Smith agreements all made on March 26, 2023 1. Re MPS Project 023160.00 a. A copy of the Laser scan report, summary, or any other documents relative to the delivery of services. B. The computer model of the Hotel Aiken C. The proposal from Quantum Reality. 2. Re MPS 023160.00 a. The report by MPS regarding the Hotel Aiken. 3. Re: MPS 023173.00 a. The same items as with #1 of this request: the laser scan report or summary, The computer models for Richland Ave buildings and b. The report for recommendations for partial building demolition. Placing this information on the city’s website in a user friendly format is s a sufficient response.”
I spent about half a century doing appraisals. Here are some important take-aways. 1 – An appraisal is an OPINION of value. 2 – the opinion is more supportable for commonly sold property (like houses and apartments). Thus 3 – for any unusual property the expert opinion is often debatable, even between different experts. 4 – Hotels are special as they are composites of different values, even if they are operating, and the real property is usually only an often small fraction of the total. Non operating hotels may be worth the value of land, or even less, depending. I have appraised several hotels, operating and otherwise. 5 – Getting an appraisal for a public acquisition is usually part of “eminent domain”, a legal proceeding for government acquisitions. No legal proceeding and the appraisal is usually optional (but still not cheap).
Would the 20 million targeted for a SRS building be sufficient to convert the Hotel Aiken into a building SRS could use?
Excellent question. I’d love to see an answer!
James Sector. Missy Durban. Would the city even want to take that chance, and how many people would accept converting a building with 125 years of residential usage to drab office use?
There was a cost estimate for a new hotel of more than $17 (including demolition) back in April of 2021. That estimate was from Weldon Wyatt’s GAC LLC. There have been arguments made that demolition and a new hotel would be less expensive than renovation of the hotel. But that is for a hotel, not an office building.
The Bennett report suggests that renovation for use as a “heavy use”hotel or an office building would be more expensive than “residential reuse similar to that for which it was originally designed. Note that the Bennett report is dated 9/21/23, four days before the recommendation to locate the $20 million “Mixed Use” office building on Aiken Corporation’s Newberry Street greenfield property. Was the feasibility report and subsequent decision held up until this analysis to consider the hotel as an office complex was completed?
There was one developer back in May/June 2021 who was interested in converting the building to apartments, but that proposal was rejected because the developer did not want anything to do with the rest of the project. That info is here:
https://aikenchronicles.com/2022/09/29/overlooked-opportunities-looking-back-at-the-may-june-2021-project-pascalis-request-for-proposals/