The Aiken Corporation Study Missed the Most Essential Detail of All: The Scope of the Study.
Less than two weeks after the long-awaited Feasibility Study was released to the public, the Aiken Corporation voted Monday morning to recommend a Newberry Street site to City Council for a $20 million “mixed-use facility.” This recommendation came almost 8 months to the day after the mayor’s January 2023 announcement that the City of Aiken was partnering with Savannah River National Lab (SRNL) to build a $20 million “workforce development center” on the property known to most of us as the failed Project Pascalis properties.
The Aiken Corporation is a not-for-profit entity doing business for the City as part of a “public-private partnership”. There are no elected officials on the Board and, according to their bylaws, membership is chosen by the Board.
In March — two months after the January announcement of the City of Aiken’s partnership with SRNL, and despite the fact that there was no signed contract with SRNL — the Aiken Corporation was awarded a $250K , no-bid contract to do pre-development work for the SRNL project. The contract identified a single downtown site on publicly-owned, Pascalis project properties to be evaluated for both the proposed SRNL facility and retail use.
The size of the building was reduced from 45,000 sq ft to 36,000 sq ft.
The project morphed from an SRNL workforce development building to a $20 million mixed-use spec building with no committed tenants.
The number of potential sites grew from one to a surprising five options.
One thing that did not change were the terms of the March 2023 contract with the Aiken Corporation, which not only defined road boundaries, it listed specific property Tax ID numbers for the scope of the study. Had the Aiken Corporation read the details of their contract, they’d have realized that all but one of the properties in their study, including the Newberry Street site they recommended, were outside of the scope of the contract’s defined boundaries! More on this in a moment.
“The Unforced Error”
One of the biggest points of discussion preceding the Newberry Street vote in the Monday morning Aiken Corporation meeting regarded the major snafu at the second public input meeting on Thursday night, September 21. At that meeting, a citizen pointed out that the poster board presentation of the old Aiken County Hospital site, (which had been featured in the first meeting on September 14), was missing.
The Aiken Corporation panel was caught completely off-guard and meeting attendees were treated to the Aiken Corp’s version of Whose on First? Neither MPS nor the Aiken Corporation told the public on Thursday that the hospital site had been removed from consideration. In fact, it seemed like the Aiken Corp panelists had no idea the Old Hospital Site had been eliminated somewhere between their first public reveal a week earlier and the Thurs Sept 21st Q and A session.
One Aiken Corporation panel member offered that the reason was because the hospital property is under contract, as if that precluded it from being considered. The hospital property developer, Aiken County native Tracey Turner, had mentioned interest in the SRNL option to City Council during an August 14th work session meeting featuring his presentation of the project vision.
The Old Hospital property was the favored site by the majority of citizen attendees, who were also overwhelmingly opposed to the lab facility being built on the taxpayer-funded, failed Project Pascalis properties. Mr. Turner was in attendance at the Thursday, September 21 meeting and spoke on the topic of the missing poster board on this hospital property.
By Monday morning, in the Aiken Corporation meeting, the narrative had shifted to state that the site didn’t meet the criteria of the study. The Thursday night snafu, which had the Aiken Corporation Board not giving notice on the removal of the hospital site poster boards, was deemed, “an unforced error.” Below is a video clip of KJ Jacobs of McMillan Pazdan Smith, the architectural firm tasked with the Feasibility Study, speaking to Aiken Corp Members via Zoom in the Monday morning meeting.
Architect K.J. Jacobs: “Maybe the mistake was looking at the site at all because it never met the criteria of the study in the first place “
Scope of The Project
Newsflash: With the exception of the “Richland Avenue” site on the Pascalis project properties, not a single alternative site met the criteria of the study.
As reported in Three Missing Pages, the site boundaries and tax parcel numbers were defined in Exhibit A of the March 14th Professional Services Agreement. City Council was told on March 13th that “ The scope of the project is located on a portion of property between Bee Lane, The Alley, Richland Ave West, and Newberry St. Southwest .” ( March 13th City Council Meeting Minutes, Page 16)
These boundaries are highlighted in yellow on the map below.
So, not only did the Old Hospital Site not meet the location criteria as defined by the city, none of the other sites, which had somehow been added to the study without the public’s knowledge, met the location criteria.
The only site that meets the scope of the project, because it falls within the prescribed boundaries, is Site 1 — Richland Avenue. The other four sites all fall outside of the study’s boundaries, including the Newberry Street site that was recommended by the Aiken Corporation.
If the Aiken Corporation can’t adhere to the most basic condition, the scope of the study, how can we have confidence of their oversight moving forward?
The relevance of this question is more pronounced when examining other points of contractual noncompliance, including the lack of a mandated public “goal-setting” forum intended to “create consensus among stakeholders regarding the goals of the project,” and the absence of an “internet web site published specifically to chronicle” all public forum proceedings and feedback and information gathered during the process. The Aiken Corporation website only contains the feasibility report, but no feedback, input, comments, or any data used to reach conclusions.
The Details
When it came time to vote on the Newberry Street site recommendation during the Monday morning Aiken Corporation meeting, two of the members abstained from voting but stayed in the discussion. If Aiken officials learned one thing from failed Project Pascalis it should have been how to properly recuse from meetings when potential conflicts of interest are at play.
Ironically, that evening, during the regular Monday night City Council meeting, Aiken Corporation’s Vice-Chairman, Pat Cunning, went on to tell Council, while extolling their success with public-private partnerships such as this, “The devil is in the details. We just watch the money.”
FOOTNOTES
The $250k, no-bid contract received by the Aiken Corporation to do pre-development work came with a defined territory of study as listed in the March 13th, 2023 City Council minutes and the March 14th, 2023 Professional Agreement signed by the City.
A December 9, 2022 contract between the Aiken Corporation and McMillan Pazdan Smith was also referred to in a March 14 Professional Agreement and a Nov 30th letter which was signed Buzz Rich on Dec 9th also references the location
30 November 2022 ATTN: Mr. Tim O’ Briant Chairman Arthur W. ” Buzz” Rich Aiken Corporation 111 Chesterfield Street Aiken, SC 29801 RE: Goal Setting Programming for New Office Building + Meeting Venue City of Aiken, South Carolina Dear Tim: Thank you for the opportunity to provide this proposal related to your proposed new, mixed- use building in downtown Aiken. We understand that the proposed site is an +/- 0. 55- acre, T- shaped parcel bounded by Richland Avenue NW, Newberry Street NW and Bee Lane. The project, which will be constructed and owned by the Aiken Corporation, is conceptualized as a mixed- use building containing approximately 30, 000 square feet of office space and a 10, 000- 15, 000 square foot exhibition hall with associated meeting and support spaces. The site is currently occupied by a variety of existing buildings, some of which may be of cultural of historical significance.
Should the Aiken Corporation be dissolved? This question is not new, but the question is being raised more often today as growing numbers of citizens take a critical look at the purpose, performance and history of this organization and ask, “Whose interests are being served?”and “Has it been worth the cost over the past 25 years?” The thoughts, below, will be explored more fully in an upcoming article on the Aiken Corporation’s “Amentum Model.”
Every so often, the Aiken Corporation gets a wild hair to do something big. It seems the bigger and boondogglier the project, the more urgent the push to get it done. Accounts from old newspaper articles, editorials and letters-to-the-editor regarding these projects suggest a habitual lack of organization, cost overruns, management by crisis, a disregard for citizen input, and promises of the economic prosperity to follow.
This all started in 2000, with the Amentum (nee Knudsen-Morrison-Westinghouse-Washington-URS-AECOM) building on Newberry Street, when the Aiken Corporation helped stage a corporate coup via an SRS contractor which transformed a modest community project into a $7.7 million boondoggle. The Amentum building project was plagued with so many cost overruns that the interior had to be finished with volunteer labor. The exterior suffered for lack of funds to extend the brickwork around to the backside of the building. There was talk for awhile of planting some shrubs to cover their derrière, but that idea passed.
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The 2002 Washington/Amentum Center building project went on to be repeated, albeit on a smaller scale, in the controversial Railroad Depot project on Union Street, which likewise promised to draw tourists and bring prosperity to the downtown. The Depot was to serve as the Aiken Visitors Center, the office for Aiken, Parks, Recreation and Tourism Department, a railroad museum, and an events space. The facility would be self-supporting, with rentals for events, reception and business meetings covering the operating and maintenance costs.
The Railroad Depot project was widely protested from its pre-2000 inception through the 2008 groundbreaking — and onward past its 2010 completion. Per the Amentum model, the Depot costs repeatedly overran the original projections. As one local resident wrote in a July 17, 2007 letter to the Aiken Standard:
“The Aiken Corporation and Depot Committee pat each other on the back and tell each other everybody loves their plan. I disliked this project for the original $300,000; for $3 million I hate it.”1
In this same letter, the citizen commented on the latest design changes to the Railroad Depot along with the Aiken Corporation’s request for another $250k:
“On Monday, the Depot project presenter used the Washington Center and Newberry Street as references. The Washington Center project and the problems that are now glossed over were a big mess — changing designs, not enough money, incomplete business plan. How soon Council forgets. This Depot seems on track for more of the same.”1
Another local citizen, who described the Railroad Depot project as a “D.C.-style bailout,” wrote in her August 23, 2010 letter to the editor,
“Ten years after the mayor and city council told taxpayers that the railroad depot would be privately funded, they have gone back on their promise, and now the taxpayer will be on the hook to complete and maintain the newest downtown money pit.“2
And speaking of pits, the self-supporting Railroad Depot was recipient to $0.9. million in plutonium money in 2022. The money will be used in the transition to “discontinue using the existing Depot as a Visitors Center and to use it for an upscale railroad museum.”
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Why is the Aiken Corporation pushing so urgently to shoehorn Pascalis 2.0, into the heart of our historic downtown? And is it our imagination that City Council seems to be pressing harder still on the accelerator pedal this September, as if there is a hurry to get someplace before November?
After the Amentum fiasco in 2002, there were calls for an independent, 3rd party audit. This never happened. After the Railroad Depot boondoggle in 2011, there were calls to dissolve the Aiken Corporation. This never happened.
It’s 2023. We’re eight+ months into the Aiken Corporation’s latest big project which has piggybacked atop the AMDC’s (Aiken Municipal Development Commission’s) failed $9.6 million Project Pascalis. Promised deadlines came and went. The long-awaited Feasibility Study revealed little. Taxpayers who footed the $250k bill for “predevelopment” work on the SRNL office complex would like to know what they bought with that money. The public has been very vocal for months now in their rejection of putting this lab in the downtown — and in the accompanying parking garage that this office complex would likely necessitate.
Citizens have been urging, ever since the SRNL project was announced, that properties outside the historic downtown core be considered. The old Aiken County Hospital property, whose buyer is clearly amenable to developing the SRNL office building on that property, has been perhaps the most favored site, followed by the various empty office buildings on the southside.
During a September 25, 2023 morning meeting, the Aiken Corporation Board described their consideration of the Hospital property as an act of “appeasing” and of going “above and beyond” in assessing it. Public participation in the upcoming City Council meeting was equated with “a circus.” There it is again — that disregard for public input.
It would appear that little has changed since 2002 and 2010.
This might be a good time to revisit the November 9, 2011 guest editorial in the Aiken Standard, written by then-Councilman Dick Dewar, who called into question the Aiken Corporation’s “financial and management acumen” in the wake of these projects.
On the Washington [Amentum] building, he described the Aiken Corporation’s latest request to change the terms of their $3.4 million loan — the third such request. On the Railroad Depot, he wrote:
“Without city Council approval, the Aiken corporation expanded the scope of the depot project and in the process spent over $2 million and incurred debt of over $800,000.”3
He also wrote,:
“In summary, the Aiken Corporation has repeatedly initiated projects for small amounts, or to be funded privately, but has an expanded the size incurring debt and responsibilities they cannot support. They then appeal to the City Council to use taxpayer dollars to meet these responsibilities. Given the history of financial and management problems with the Aiken corporation, I think the city Council needs to restrict their ability to initiate projects without adequate funding.”3
Laying the responsibility onto City Council to impose stringent costs controls on the Aiken Corporation, he finished with this:
“If City Council cannot get the Aiken Corporation under control, it should be dissolved.”3
This isn’t about disliking the individuals on the Aiken Corporation Board. This isn’t about disliking the Railroad Depot, the Amenteum Center, or the Savannah River Site. It’s about, among other things, returning the control over the decisions that affect the City to the people.
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1. Stoker, Jenne, “Depot Project a Boondoggle?” Aiken Standard, July 17, 2007. 2. Pate, Kathy, “Depot Project a D.C.-style Bailout,” Aiken Standard, August 23, 2010. 3. Dewar, Dick, “Aiken Corp. Needs to be More Accountable,” Aiken Standard, November 9, 2011.
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.
Is SRNL still a factor in this project?
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.
The first time I saw a painted bunting was in the mid-1980s while tagging along with my brother, who was birdwatching in some fields and woods adjacent to his home near Wagner, SC. The sighting was actually more of a glimpse than a look, as the bird — first detected by my brother through its song — disappeared as quickly as it appeared in a flash of color flown from one leafy canopy to another.
The second time I saw a painted bunting was thirty years later, in 2016. Looking out the window one April morning, I saw something curious and said. “Why does that bird have a green leaf stuck to its back?”
Looking through the binoculars I saw that it wasn’t a leaf, but a brilliant patch of lime-colored feathers on the most fantastically colored bird I’d ever seen. “A painted bunting!” I exclaimed. I quickly took photos to document the sighting. These, below, were the least blurry of the batch.
I shared the photos with my brother and fellow birdwatching friends who urged me to keep my eyes peeled for the female, who should arrive any day. Sure enough, she arrived a week later — a small parrot-green bird with breast feathers in shades of yellow and peach that, at times, seemed to emanate a light, like a sunrise.
Since then, the painted buntings have returned every year. They have also increased in numbers. In 2018, two pairs came to the feeders. More arrived in subsequent years. I could never completely confirm the numbers. They are quick little birds and quick to flit away at the slightest disturbance. There were enough of the birds, tho, that I began referring to them as a colony of painted buntings.
This year, I finally confirmed a total of five males. How did I do this? I spent the first week or so after their arrival studying the birds, trying to memorize the color variations and subtle shape differences of each bird. Some are roundish, others more sleek and elongated; some have vivid red breasts, and others tend toward orange; the color patches on different birds vary in size and shape. No two painted buntings are alike! Through observing, I’d already determined that we had at least four different males, but I suspected more. Then one day, the implausible happened. All five males arrived to the feeding area at once, confirming my suspicions. The photo below, taken by iPad, doesn’t prove the existence of one, much less five painted buntings, but I post it here to preserve the moment.
Each spring, the first male painted buntings arrive like clockwork around April 14-16. One to three weeks later the first female arrives. The birds are always famished on arrival and spend long, long spells at the feeders. This is the only time I’ve seen them refuse to budge when other birds approach the feeder or try to bully them away.
So where is the mystery? It happens sometime in July. The buntings disappear entirely from the feeders. Each time this has happened, including this year, I’ve been alarmed and saddened, thinking something must have happened to the birds. And each time, including this year, the buntings reappeared to the feeders in late August or early September. The only difference this year is that I’ve slowed down enough to give the matter some thought, record their return on the calendar, and do a bit of research.
I don’t have a definitive answer to the mystery, just a pretty good idea, courtesy of several sources, including the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology site. As it turns out, painted buntings spend most of the year eating seeds from the fields, marshes and, as available, bird-feeders. During breeding season, however, they switch to spiders and insects such as caterpillars, wasps, flies, grasshoppers, weevils and beetles, which they feed to their young. During breeding season, they also tend to forage higher in the trees, sometimes 30 feet off the ground.
When the buntings returned to the feeders this year in early September, they were in full molt, looking disheveled and moth-eaten. Their feathers have since mostly come in, and the males are back to vividly colored perfection. Soon, they’ll be ready to make their return to Cuba and other points south where they’ll spend the winter.
The females and young have been all but absent this year. I do remain a little concerned, especially since a wave of avian pox swept through in mid-summer, forcing me to take the feeders down for two weeks. I’ve decided that, rather than worry over their plight, I’ll assume this to be another mystery that might be solved one year.
For now, I know that the original five males appear to have survived the summer, including the one with the dangling, deformed leg, who has been here for two summers now, answering the question, “Do the same birds return every year?” It appears they may.
The downtown “Mixed Use” building feasibility report: Weak cost estimates, data free analysis, and continued use of public relations criteria in site selection. Is this a VIP Entertainment Center or a Workplace Development Center? And where is the lab?
by Don Moniak September 14, 2023
The long overdue downtown Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) office building project (1) draft feasibility study was released this week, just two days prior to the project’s first “public input session” in seven months. Nine months in the making, the underwhelming report has the hallmarks of a few people casually sitting around an office one afternoon generating a list of evaluation criteria and project pros and cons.
The report was released just two months after great uncertainty over SRNL’s role in, and commitment to, the project emerged. The draft feasibility study does little to quell that uncertainty, at different points referring to a “proposed office tenant,” “prospective tenant,” or “future tenant.”
The acronym SRNL is actually absent from the report, replaced by the vague category of “Mixed-Use” that was first adopted four months ago.
“At the time (late 2022), the Aiken Corporation was attempting to attract a $20 million investment in the form of a grant from the PU Settlement Fund from the South Carolina General Assembly.” (2)
The now defunct Aiken Municipal Development Commission (AMDC) courted SRNL officials for the first half of 2022, in anticipation of a $20 million allocation for which the AMDC itself had originally lobbied.
The $20 million for “SRS/National Laboratory Offsite Infrastructure” was allocated in mid-2022 by the General Assembly.
The AMDC and SRNL had agreed to a proposed, never-disclosed location by June 2022.
Aiken Corporation’s late 2022 involvement consisted of being contacted by the City of Aiken “with the goal of having the Developer (Aiken Corporation) engage various experts to perform certain services.”
The City of Aiken did not approve its $250,000, no-bid “pre-development” contract with the Aiken Corporation until March 13, 2023. At this time, the Aiken Corporation remains a “pre-development” contractor.
With that kind of pat-oneself-on-the-back opening, profound insights should be unexpected, and the report does not disappoint.
A Convenient Cost Estimate
Among the underwhelming findings is a “rough order of magnitude cost estimate” of precisely $20 million and zero cents ($20,000,000.00). The breakdown of costs also remains nearly identical to the City’s January 2023 estimate, with two notable exceptions:
The construction cost estimate for a 36,000 square foot building are $1.2 million higher than for a 45,000 square foot building.
Contingency cost estimates are reduced from nearly 15% ($2.7 million) to only five percent ($1.0 million).
Deficiencies and Inconsistencies
The study purports to have evaluated five locations for locating the facility. The cost options are identical for each option.
At least one notable deficiency exists for each alternative, and, looked at across the board, inconsistency reigns:
The former Public Safety building on North Laurens Street, which is a two-minute walk from the business district, and directly across from the very busy downtown Post Office, is considered to have “limited pedestrian activity.”
The Chesterfield Street option adjacent to the new Municipal Building is said to have “no opportunity for green space,” despite being across the street from one of Aiken’s revered tree-lined Parkways.
The Newberry Street option, located on vacant lots purchased by Aiken Corporation in July, 2022, has as a negative “adjacent to existing residential uses,” although the same can be said of every site but the Pascalis properties.
At the Pascalis properties site on Richland Avenue, a “Courtyard/Plaza (that) adds green space,” is identified as a benefit, although the area in question is the small dead-end alley between the McGhee Building and Warneke Cleaners.
The Old Hospital site at 828 Richland Avenue, which has the most existing green space, received no credit for that green space. Ironically, the project’s main authors, McMillan Pazden and Smith (MPS), was the design firm hired by WTC Investments in 2019 to help with a failed effort to redevelop that property. MPS, which had no qualms about demolishing and clearcutting the entirety of the 828 Richland Avenue property four years ago, has since taken a liking to the mature trees there and does not identify the absence of demolition requirements as a site advantage. (3)
Corporate Entertainment Criteria or Workforce Development Criteria?
Key criteria identical to those leading to the original Pascalis properties siting decision, none of which are cost-related, appear to continue to disproportionately drive the current evaluation. These criteria are best summarized as “visibility” and “accessibility to downtown.”
During the January 23, 2023, State of the City Address where the project announcement was made, SRNL Director Dr. Victor Majidi emphasized that visibility was “most important:”
“Most importantly this building is the community face of the laboratory…This building…brings the Savannah River National Laboratory into the heart of the Aiken community.”
During a subsequent February 6th public forum (the only one to date), MPS moderator K.J. Jacobs described the site selection process:
“The national lab folks were very interested in a site with a high degree of visibility…they wanted to be at sort of the Main and Main Street location in Aiken so that they could have maximum visibility. They want to be a part of the community. They want their folks to be able to leverage walking downtown easily and being able to go eat in a restaurant.
Walkability was important and and their interest in having access to amenities in downtown…the other part of that is the Amentum theater and ideally having close proximity to that. Just like Newberry Hall, there’s no point going and creating a bunch of catering facilities if you have the opportunity to leverage existing relationships next door.
So those (criteria) were the framework around the decision to focus on this site. As you all know the City of Aiken controls this site so putting that criteria together with this site has led us to this conversation.”
These non-cost factors of walkability, visibility, and accessibility remain driving factors for site selection, and the two obvious throw-in alternatives, the Old Hospital and former Public Safety Building sites, both received negative reviews for these non-cost criteria.
Visibility is obviously a public relations factor. DOE contracts contain a standard provision titled “Community Commitment,” which can be summed up as “maintain a positive image” and “win hearts and minds.” The looming presence of a seemingly benign science laboratory office headquarters in downtown Aiken will certainly help provide a positive filter to offset the glare of expanded nuclear weapons materials production at the Savannah River Site, as well as the fact that the heavily contaminated 310 square-mile area will remain off-limits to public use for the foreseeable future.
The inherent cynicism of the other two non-cost criteria—walkability and accessiblity—is symbolized by one feature in the “Conceptual Building Floor Plans: the third floor’s “Covered Terrace.”
This rooftop terrace concept was first identified in the scope of work in the Aiken Corporation’s March 13, 2023 contract:
“There is a desire for a rooftop gathering and event space.”
A common refrain justifying the “nearby amenities and dining” argument is that the lab is just wanting to treat its workers well.
This workplace environment chorus is a ruse. The Department of Energy no longer even provides a cafeteria for well over one-thousand lab employees at its worn down, seventy-year old lab complex. Many employees remain in mobile offices, as if they are working on a temporary construction site.
The idea that DOE/SRNL and its operating contractor Battelle Savannah River Alliance (BSRA) might be locating fewer than ten percent of the lab’s workforce amidst the amenities of downtown Aiken as a means of workplace betterment is comical on its face.
The desire for nearby amenities and a rooftop gathering place clearly have a more utilitarian purpose: wowing visiting University system dignitaries, colleagues from other National Laboratories, technology transfer partners, and any other number of professional and political luminaries. Meetings following a long day of nuclear nonproliferation training or nuclear weapon-parts simulations can end with a trip to unwind on the rooftop terrace or a walk to the nearest fine dining establishment. The opportunities for photo-ops that will further enhance the image of the lab and thus SRS will be plentiful.
By all indications to date, the SRNL offsite office complex building is being designed more for a combination of public relations, image enhancement, and an entertainment center for DOE’s corporate contractors, and much less for the more tedious task of workforce development. Thus, $20 million of plutonium settlement funds resulting from the Department of Energy’s bureaucratic incompetence and misleading promises is likely being put to the cabinet agency’s use to enhance its own image and those of its nuclear weapons production and cleanup contractors.
That is, if DOE/SNRL is even interested.
Conceptual Plan for Third Floor of the “Mixed Use” Building. “Covered Terrace” is to the right. “Mixed Use Facility” Site Alternatives. Walking Distance is from Laurens Street and Richland Avenue. This approach discounts the presence of shops and restaurants on North Laurens and West Richland, as well as proximity of Old County Hospital Site to Rose Hill Estate. This map contains the only site selection data set in the report, an indication that “walkability” is more important than cost.
Footnotes
(1). During the January 23, 2023 State of the City address, Aiken City Councilman and Mayor Pro Tem Ed Woltz announced a proposal to construct a $20 million “Workforce Development Center” on behalf of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) in downtown Aiken.
Project funding is from the $20 million allocation from the State of South Carolina’s 2020 settlement with our federal government, commonly referred to as plutonium settlement.
The proposed location was on properties obtained by the now defunct Aiken Municipal Development Commission (AMDC) for the purpose of the $100 million plus downtown demolition and redevelopment endeavor known as Project Pascalis. There was no discussion of alternative sites.
December 9, 2022. AMDC Chairman Keith Wood and Chris Verenes resigned in protest due to the failure of City Council to meet with them regarding the causes of the Project Pascalis failure.
“Potential purchase of real property located in downtown Aiken.”
“A proposed contractual arrangement to lease property in downtown Aiken.
In regard to the latter topic, City Council was discussing, and probably negotiating for, rental of property owned by the AMDC and not the city.
Mayor Rick Osbon recused himself because the “discussion might involve one of his direct competitors.” (Warneke Cleaners is the competitor, and the property it leases is part of the SNRL project).
Attendees included Chamber of Commerce President and AMDC commissioner David Jameson, attorneys Daniel Plyler and Gary Smith, Tim O’Briant, Buzz Rich, SRNL Director Dr. Vahid Majidi, and SRNL Assistant Director Sharon Marra.
December 14, 2022. David Jameson resigned from the AMDC, citing South Carolina’s simple Community Development Law as the root cause of the Pascalis project failure.
January 9, 2023: City Council held another closed-door Executive Session involving the same property purchase and lease arrangements at the December 12, 2022, Executive Session. Absent from list of attendees is SRNL’s leadership and Buzz Rich.
The same day, at the regular City Council meeting, Council “continued” a motion to establish itself as the governing body of the AMDC.
January 17, 2023. Despite the expressed wishes of all but two citizens to dissolve the AMDC, City Council unanimously voted to appoint itself as governing body of the AMDC; in order to transfer AMDC properties and assets to the City of Aiken.
January 25, 2023: The SRNL lab project is announced at the “State of the City” jamboree. With Mayor Osbon continuing to recuse himself, Mayor Pro-Tem Ed Woltz described the project in identical terms as the December 9th Aiken Corporation/MPS agreement, and stated: “This is not a done deal.” (Cou
SRNL Director Majidi also addressed the crowd and assured them that no chemical or radiological operations would take place; but also described the facility as a “nonproliferation training center.” According to the SRNL website, this aspect of its mission involves U.S. intelligence agencies. (His transcribed comments are in footnote 2 here.)
January 28, 2023: The City of Aiken announced it would hold a public forum. No mention of the Aiken Corporation was in the announcement.
February 6, 2023: The “City of Aiken Public Input Session” was held at the African American center. Aiken Corporation CEO Buzz Rich opened the session and described it as “focus meeting.” MPS “Principal” K.J. Jacobs moderated the meeting, which he later described as a “listening session.” No mention was made of the existing agreement between Aiken Corporation and MPS.
Present in the audience, but not taking part in the discussion or answering questions, was the SRNL leadership. SRNL has yet to engage with concerned citizens in a public forum, and has been absent from discussions involving the parking garage proposed as a key part of the lab project.
The initial cost estimate of the parking garage, euphemistically referred to by city officials as a “structured parking solution,” is estimated to be $7 million. Two identified sources of funding are hospitality tax funds and plutonium settlement funds from the city’s $25 million share of the plutonium settlement allocated for “Downtown and Northside Redevelopment.”
The garage was not a part of the February 6th discussion.
In addition to the statements mentioned in the body of this article, Mr. Jacobs also provided an email address for comments and promised to establish a website to chronicle “appropriate” comments. The latter is also a requirement in the March 13th contract. The email addressed failed to work for five days, and the website has yet to appear.
February 8, 2023: The Aiken Corporation approved two items:
a. As reported in The Agenda Setting Aiken Corporation, signed an agreement with the City of Aiken to share in the cost of hiring McMillan, Pazdan & Smith Architecture.”
b. The hiring of attorney Tracy Green at a fee of $400 per hour to “look at the current by-laws, Freedom of Information Act issues, and other legal matters.” Other legal matters includes negotiating leases with “third parties” such as SNRL. (The by-laws were updated and approved in May 2023).
City Council members Lessie Price and Gail Diggs were listed as present in the attendee list, acting as “ex-officio” voting members of the Aiken Corporation.
March 7, 2023: The Design Review Board (DRB) held a public “work session” to discuss the design of a ~$7 million parking garage, termed a “structured parking solution,” proposed to accommodate the influx of lab employees. During the pre-decisional meeting citizen comments were prohibited—reducing them to spectators while developers and city officials were participants.
March 8, 2023: The Aiken Corporation approved a motion to “to accept the proposed Professional Services Agreement with the City of Aiken.” City Councilwoman Lessie Price was listed as an attendee.
March 13, 2023. Aiken City Council convened as the governing body of the AMDC. After the issue arose of potential conflicts of interest due to the status of the two Council members on the Aiken Corporation Executive Committee, Council as AMDC tabled the motion to transfer AMDC properties and assets to the City of Aiken. A decision was made instead for a Council public hearing to dissolve the AMDC as a means to transfer the properties and assets—-since dissolution would automatically trigger the transfer.
Later, during its regular meeting, Aiken City Council approved the $250,000, no-bid professional services agreement with the Aiken Corporation; which was deemed “The Developer” in the contract. As already stated, the December 9, 2022 Aiken Corporation agreement with MPS was incorporated into the contract.
Aiken City Council approved a contract for pre-development work on property the City of Aiken did not own, and which only controlled via its dual-role existence on the AMDC.
March 27, 2023. Aiken City Council approved, on First Reading, the dissolution of the AMDC. Both Councilman Ed Woltz and Mayor Rick Osbon recused themselves from the discussion—due to Woltz’s ownership of land adjacent to AMDC properties, and Osbon’s “friendly competitor” Warneke Cleaners occupying part of the lab project property.
After the issue of a potential conflict of interest involving that status of the two Council members on the Board of the Aiken Corporation, the two committed to resigning from the Board. Subsequently the motion passed unanimously on the First Reading.
March 28, 2023: Councilmembers Lessie Price and Gail Diggs resigned from the Board of the Aiken Corporation.
April 10, 2023. Aiken City Council deferred the Second Reading of the vote to dissolve the AMDC, with City Attorney Gary Smith stating he would request an informal opinion on the ethics issues regarding the
April 13, 2023. Smith submitted his request, and added a request pertaining to Ed Woltz and Rick Osbon.
April 27, 2023. The staff of the Ethics Commission issued its informal opinion, stating that no member of Council had to recuse themselves from the vote to dissolve the AMDC.
In regard to the Council members of Aiken Corporation’s board, the informal opinion cited formal opinions of the Commission from 2000 and 2001 that exempted elected officials from conflict of interest laws if they serve as members of Boards of organizations which were created by, and exist at the discretion of, the elected officials’ governing body. In the absence of this exemption, the March 28th resignations would apply to any future votes.
In regard to Mayor Osbon and Councilman Woltz, the staff’s informal opinion cited the lack of financial gain from dissolving the AMDC because vote to dissolve was not a direct vote to transfer AMDC properties and assets.
Meanwhile, little discussion of the lab project has occurred. It might be held up by the failure of Council to transfer the properties to city control, and/or the identified closed-door meetings with “key stakeholders” is ongoing.
Meanwhile, the date for the draft “feasibility study” schedule is now two weeks overdue. No website is up and running to share citizen comments.
(2) The correct binomial for plutonium is Pu, not PU.
(3) McMillan, Pazden, and Smith’s 2019 conceptual plan for 828 Richland Avenue, W, the Old County Hospital. An apartment complex requiring removal of forest canopy was planned where the “Mixed-Use” lab facility is now proposed by Turner Development. (top building, from page 84 of the October 28, 2019 Aiken City Council meeting agenda information packet.)
MPS cited “Partially wooded site will require removal of mature trees” as a disadvantage for this Mixed-Use facility.
