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.
The only architectural offering to date of the proposed downtown parking garage
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.
From the DRB Work Session Agenda for 3/7/23.
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.
An architectural rendering of the proposed retail and residential building at 124 and 126 Chesterfield Street. The entire application can be seen at Pages 9-49 of the December 6, 2022 DRB Agenda Packet
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.
Chesterfield Street in downtown Aiken. Area in red is proposed three-story parking garage site. Area in yellow is proposed three-story residential and retail site. Note the absence of a left hand turn alternative into the proposed 162-vehicle garage, unless a route across the parkway is developed. The brief narrative to date (1) only states the entrance will be from a driveway on Chesterfield Street.
Exhibit A: Narrative for parking garage. No description of access to garage from northbound traffic is provided.
(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)
Part I: ~ $86,000 + for “Convention Center” Planning
by Don Moniak
On January 23, 2023, Aiken Economic Development Director Tim O’Briant and Finance Director Kim Rooks co-signed a $36,799.93 check to the Aiken based law firm of Hull Barrett. The check was reimbursement for the firm’s fifteen months of legal counsel on behalf of Newberry Hall in Aiken, LLC (Agent: Patrick Carlisle) during negotiations with the Aiken Municipal Development Commission (AMDC). The lengthy negotiations involved “convention center lease and operating agreements,” consulting agreements, and existing lease agreements.
The invoice from Hull Barrett, PC.
This payment closed another chapter on the Project Pascalis story, this one involving the City of Aiken’s pursuit of a downtown conference center. The check to Hull Barrett raised the costs of all Pascalis project work specific to conference center planning to approximately $86,000.
More than half of the costs were in legal fees, and another $30,800 was spent on market surveys conducted by Chicago-based consultants, money that left the community and the state. In addition to the Newberry Hall of Aiken negotiations and document reviews, the costs included a ground lease appraisal for a possible long-term lease of the city’s former historic municipal building at 214 Park Avenue.
Table 1: Direct Project Pascalis Convention/Conference Center Costs.
Party
Role
Task
Cost
Hull-Barrett
Newberry Hall Legal Counsel
Negotiation of Legal Agreements
$36,799.93
Pope-Flynn
AMDC Legal Counsel
Negotiation and Review of Legal Agreements
$7,052.00
Capstone Services
Project Manager
Review of Legal Agreements
$1,615.00
HVS Consulting
Consultant
Conference Center Market Review
$6,000.00
AECOM Technical Services
Consultant
Project Pascalis Market Review
$24,800.00
McNeil Appraisal Services
Appraiser
Ground Lease Appraisal of 214 Park Ave
$9,700.00
Total
$85,966.93
Additional factors that would better reflect the true, total costs of conference center planning and design include city staff labor (1), Boudreaux Group’s work for the first, secret Project Pascalis effort in early 2021 (2), Cranston Engineering’s support in 2022 of the second Project Pascalis effort (3), and design work by the second Pascalis Project developer, RPM Development Partners, under a cost sharing agreement with the AMDC. However, these costs are difficult to break down by project area.
The Convention Center and The Mayor’s Vision
A downtown conference or convention center with a capacity of 500 people, along with a 100-room hotel, downtown apartments, and a parking garage, were the stated goal of Mayor Rick Osbon and City Council, articulated in the Mayor’s March 2021 letter to the AMDC:
“Explore meeting the existing demand for a conference/convention facility that will fulfill the persistent call from regional membership organizations and others who have indicated they would host regular large events in our charming and historic city if there were an appropriate venue here to meet their needs. Such a venue would need to be adjacent to sufficient first-class lodging to accommodate as many as 500 overnight and multi-night attendees.”
Mayor Osbon’s letter was delivered two weeks after City Council adopted the $115,000 AECOM prepared Economic Development Strategic Master Plan, and the AMDC’s vague announcement of “Project Pascalis.” At the time, the project was only known to involve an unnamed, “well-capitalized, seasoned investor” seeking to revitalize unidentified areas in the city’s historic and treasured Parkway District. Three weeks after the Mayor’s letter, conceptual designs of a new hotel, conference center, parking garage, and apartments were in the hands of the AMDC—but not shared with the citizenry.
The Market Surveys: $30,800+
The Mayor articulated his vision, and the concept designs were completed, prior to any market surveys being conducted. In May 2021, the AMDC commissioned the first of two assessments, paying Chicago-based AECOM Technical Services $24,800 (4) to conduct a market and financial analysis for its downtown plan. Prior to procuring the study, AMDC Executive Director Tim O’Briant also described the intent of the study as a supporting document for potential Tax Increment Financing:
“Here is the proposal for a full market study related to Project Pascalis from AECOM. Such as report would be required by law if the County considers a TIF for the project. I’d like to get these guys, or another firm if you have suggestions, started so we can be ready for the TIF debate ASAP. Let’s discuss.”
“Presumes that a private operator can run the food and beverage business at break- even, with a focus on banquets and local events rather than conventions and trade shows
• Subsidy is likely needed to offset debt service on construction cost
• Estimated annual debt service: $300,000
Based on a total development cost per square foot of $221 in 2021 dollars-“
The AMDC purchased the seven Pascalis properties in November 2021 for $9.5 million. AMDC later procured, for $6,000, the services of Chicago-based HVS Convention, Sports & Entertainment Facilities Consulting to conduct a “Proposed Conference Center Market Analysis.” (5)
HVS conducted interviews with “key informants,” but did not identify any by name. Among the underwhelming take-aways from the interviews were:
Downtown Aiken lacks a ballroom to host banquets of 300 or more.
Several events are lost annually to North Augusta, Augusta, and other nearby cities due to lack of facilities.
Opinions vary, but most agree there is occasional need for banquet seating capacity of 300 to 500.
Marketing and selling the facility will require significant investment in staff and other costs, especially in the first few years.
A City-owned conference center could require ongoing subsidies.
In terms of demand, HVS concurred with AECOM: there was low demand for conventions and trade shows without signficant taxpayer investments in marketing the venue. The demand forecast was for six conferences annually in the first few years of operation, and ten conferences annually after a “dedicated marketing and sales staff” was in place.
The Newberry Hall Negotiations: $45,000+
Among the seven properties the AMDC purchased was the “Anderson property”, home to popular event and catering facility Newberry Hall. The commission paid $2 million, more than 2.5 times the appraised market value of $712,000 listed by the Aiken County Assessor. The intent of the AMDC and its developers was to demolish the Newberry Hall building, first built in 1965, and replace it with another conference center, in conjunction with a five-story parking garage and apartments.
This was all made possible when the owners of Newberry Hall exercised a one-time waiver on an existing option to purchase the property. As described in the Newberry Hall lease:
“Section 5 of the Lease provides Carlisle with a purchase option (the “Option”) that would be triggered by the closing of the Purchase. Anderson and Carlisle desire that Commission close the Purchase without triggering the Option and have requested that Carlisle grant a one-time waiver of the Option to allow Carlisle and Commission more time to attempt to finalize an Operating Agreement.” (4)
The option was possibly negated by the high sales price originally offered by Weldon Wyatt’s WTC Investments, which was also negotiated with the Anderson family by members of the Smith, Massey, Brodie, Guynn, and Mayes law firm. Eight months after the first contract for $2 million was signed for the Anderson Property, Massey signed, on behalf of RPM Development Partners, a purchase and sale agreement with the AMDC for the Pascalis properties at nearly half the AMDC’s purchase price—-$5 million for properties that were bought with $9.5 of debt bonds issued by the city.
Bill submitted to WTC Investments, LLC, the property aquisition arm of the first Project Pascalis developer, GAC, LLC (Agent: Weldon Wyatt). This bill was obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request and first reported in The Pascalis Attorneys.
As reported in The Pascalis Evictees, the “Amended Lease Agreement (Second Amendment)” included options for compensation for lost income during demolition and reconstruction, purchase of a new building following a complicated appraisal process, and negotiating to operate a new conference or convention center. According to the appraisal clause, the owners of Newberry Hall had, as a tenant, reportedly invested $350,000 to improve the popular facility. (4)
Between October 15, 2021 and January 17, 2023, when Hull Barrett submitted its invoice, negotiations for operation of a future conference center and other matters, held between representatives of the AMDC and Newberry Hall, resulted in:
Five “letters of intent”
The November 2021 “Second Amendment to the Lease Agreement.”
A ‘Third Amendment to the Lease Agreement,” which required two versions.
Nine versions of the “Convention Center Lease and Operating Agreement.”
An agreement to amend lease.
Five versions of consulting agreements.
In response to a request for copies of the legal documents that were paid for with public funds, Aiken Economic Development Director Tim O’Briant responded:
“Legal expenses related to a potential displacement of Newberry Hall were paid by agreement with the owners. The work product of their attorney and his services on their behalf is their attorney-client privilege to waive or maintain. Please contact them directly. As you know, the project was canceled and no draft of any agreement was ever produced for, presented to or considered by the AMDC and/or Aiken City Council due to that cancellation. No further records beyond the invoice will be provided.”
In actuality, the “Second Amendment to the Lease Agreement” was a final document that was publicly disclosed, and any subsequent lease agreements for a city tenant are subject to disclosure. No legal expenses were included in the relocation agreements for five other potential Pascalis evictees. (7)
According to legal invoices contained in the AMDC Financial Binder (pages 155-172) , the Columbia and Spartanburg based law firm of Pope-Flynn was responsible for protecting the legal interests of the AMDC, and thus the financial interests of Aiken city taxpayers, during conference center negotiations. Pope-Flynn billed the AMDC more than twenty hours and $7,000 for review of contracts, letters of intent, conference calls, and other work relevant to the negotiations.
An example of Pope-Flynn’s billings for Newberry Hall and conference center related work.
According to invoices on pages 44-59 of the financial binder, Aiken County based project manager Capstone Services also assisted in the review and discussion of the agreements and contracts. Upwards of seventeen hours and $1700 was devoted to tasks such as “reviewing pros and cons of conference center delivery method.”
The Ground Lease Appraisal: $9,700+
In April 2022 the AMDC decided, without any public input or formal City Council approval, to pursue a conference center at the soon to be vacated Municipal Building at 214 Park Avenue. As reported in Why is the City of Aiken Toying with 113 Downtown Jobs, the discussion leading to the decision occurred in back channels involving the city’s reportedly independent Design Review Board and AMDC Executive Director Tim O’Briant.
Following the announcement, O’Briant procured the services of local appraiser Thomas McNeil to conduct a “Ground Lease Appraisal” of the historic Municipal Building. His Appraisal and Ground Lease Market Survey was submitted to Tim O’Briant on June 6, 2022.
The purpose of the report was to:
“Assist the client in establishing a Ground Lease rental rate for the subject tracts, one parcel, as well as form an opinion of value of the subject site on the basis of the Ground Lease rental rate and other data. This report is contingent upon and made on the basis of the hypothetical condition that the improvements situated on the site, redeveloped as a portion of Project Pascalis and specifically denoted as the forty-six thousand gross leasable square foot, more or less conference center and commercial space, exists upon the site as of the effective date of this report.”
McNeil defined a ground lease as, “an agreement in which a tenant is permitted to develop a piece of property during the lease period, after which the land and all improvements are turned over to the property owner… In the case of a ground lease, generally one party owns the land (i.e. fee simple interest) while a separate party owns the improvements (i.e. leasehold interest). In most cases, the owner of the land leases the land to the owner of the improvements for an extended period of time (20 – 100 years).”
The ground lease appraisal was hampered by a lack of “comparable properties,” specifically ground leases in the Aiken market area. Ironically, one of few local “ground leases” cited in the report included the new Taco Bell on Whiskey Road. That private redevelopment project was made possible after the locally owned bowling alley was demolished as the result of another City of Aiken project.
By using an “Income Capitalization Approach” that postulated an annual income to the property owner of $104,157 for twenty years, supplemented by a limited local ground lease comparison approach, McNeil concluded the ground-lease value of the subject real estate, “on the basis of any and all assumptions, extraordinary assumptions and hypothetical conditions contained herein to be $2,200,000.00 TWO MILLION TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS.”
(1) Staff time devoted to any aspect of Project Pascalis is unknown. Monthly reports from the two person, $165,000 a year City of Aiken Economic Development Department provided no breakdown of time devoted to any Pascalis related tasks.
(2) The conceptual plans for the first Project Pascalis effort were completed by the Boudreaux Group, on behalf of then project developer Weldon Wyatt, were publicly disclosed only after a Freedom of Information Act request in June 2022. The AMDC compensated Wyatt’s GAC, LLC $14,417.50 for the overall effort after the developer withdrew from the project less than two months after the first announcement.
(3) Cranston Engineering billed the City of Aiken for $33,692.93 for professional services in support of “Raines development” in downtown Aiken between March and July of 2022. The invoices are on pages 86-90 of the FOIA-induced AMDC Financial Binder.
Cranston also received $18,504.00 for a condition assessment of 214 Park Avenue. Although this bill was paid for by the AMDC, the project was requested in September of 2021, prior to any proposal for a conference center at the Municipal Building.
“The development of the Project contemplates that the improvements on the Property would be demolished and replaced with a larger conference center and kitchen and that Carlisle would be compensated for loss of income during interruption of Carlisle’ s business and would lease the replacement conference center and kitchen pursuant to a replacement lease and operating agreement, the terms of which are under discussion but are not finalized (the “Operating Agreement”).
D. Section 5 of the Lease provides Carlisle with a purchase option (the “Option”) that would be triggered by the closing of the Purchase.
E. Anderson and Carlisle desire to that Commission close the Purchase without triggering the Option and have requested that Carlisle grant a one-time waiver of the Option to allow Carlisle and Commission more time to attempt to finalize an Operating Agreement.
NOW, THEREFORE, for ten dollars and other good and valuable consideration, the receipt and sufficiency of which are hereby acknowledged, the Parties hereby covenant and agree as follows:
1. One-Time Waiver of Option. Carlisle consents to the closing of the Purchase by Commission and agrees that closing of the Purchase by Commission shall not trigger the Option. Except for this one-time waiver by Carlisle of the triggering of the Option, the Option shall remain in full force and effect and shall be applicable to any future transactions that would otherwise trigger the Option.”
2. Negotiation of Operating Agreement. Carlisle and Commission shall continue good-faith negotiations of the Operating Agreement based on the latest draft of the letter of intent currently being discussed by them. However, the letter of intent has not been approved, and Carlisle and Commission agree that neither of them shall have any liability or obligations to the other for failure to enter into an Operating Agreement.
3. Failure to Enter into Operating Agreement. The Lease will continue in full force and effect after the Effective Date, with Carlisle being the “lessee” thereunder and Commission being the “lessor” thereunder. Failure of Carlisle and Commission to execute an Operating Agreement within five (5) years after the Effective Date shall trigger Carlisle’s Option to purchase the Property to the same extent as if “lessor” delivers to “lessee” notice of intention to sell the Property under Section 5(i) of the Lease. The closing of the purchase and sale of the Option shall be made under the same procedure as outlined in Section 5 of the Lease, except that the purchase price shall be determined by an appraisal as described below.”
Appraisal. The purchase price for the Property under the Option shall be the cash equivalent price at which the Property would change hands between a hypothetical willing buyer and a hypothetical willing seller, neither being under a compulsion to buy or sell and both having reasonable knowledge of relevant facts, as determined by an appraisal, minus $350,000 (which is the amount paid by Carlisle for leasehold improvements) (the “Appraised Value”). After the Option is triggered, Carlisle and Commission shall attempt to agree on an appraiser to perform the appraisal for ten (10) days. If Carlisle and Commission cannot agree on an appraiser within such ten-day period, each shall appoint a MAI appraiser who is approved to conduct appraisals for commercial properties located in Aiken, South Carolina by Security Federal Bank, First Community Bank, or First Citizens Bank by each party delivering notice of the identity of its respective appraiser to the other within twenty (20) days after the expiration o f such ten-day period . If the two appraisers cannot agree on an Appraised Value of the Property within thirty (30) days after the last of them is appointed, then within five (5) days, they shall appoint a third appraiser. The third appraiser shall determine the appraised value of the Property within thirty (30) days after such appraiser’s appointment. The Appraised Value shall be the average of the two (2) appraisals which are closest to each other. Commission and Carlisle shall each pay the costs of the appraiser appointed by them, and one-half (1/2) of the cost of the third appraiser. The purchase price as determined herein shall be conclusive and binding on Commission and Carlisle. If any party fails to appoint an appraiser within the time required herein, the Appraised Value shall be determined by the appraiser appointed by the other party and shall be conclusive and binding upon the Commission and Carlisle. In recognition that Commission may pay greater than fair market value for properties as part of economic development activities, properties acquired by Commission for the Project or otherwise shall be excluded from comparable sales by the appraisers conducting the appraisals. This Section shall supersede Section 5(ii) of the Lease.
(7) The generic relocation assistance agreements for all other AMDC tenants on Pascalis properties reads:
“Upon the Tenant vacating the Premises, the Commission shall provide relocation assistance in the form of a single payment calculated as the amount paid by the Tenant as Rent to the Commission to such date, beginning with the Rent paid by the Tenant for the month of December 2021, less any amounts paid by the Commission to any property manager or property management agency .for the management of the Premises and the collection of Rent.”
(8) The McNeil Appraisal Invoice (below) The Ground Lease survey was obtained via a FOIA request and is available here.
Hearing on Ed Woltz Business License Appeal Postponed; State of the City event: Future of Municipal Building, Hotel Aiken, the National Lab Office Building, and “There’s a Joke There Somewhere.” The “ New Horizons” Meeting
By Don Moniak January 24, 2023
Ed Woltz Business License Appeal Cancelled.
On Tuesday morning, the city issued a public notice stating:
“The meeting that was scheduled for Thursday, January 26, 2023, at 10 a.m. regarding appeal of a business license for Edward K. Woltz and Holly H. Woltz and S&C Properties LLC v. The City of Aiken, South Carolina and its Designated Business License Official has been cancelled. The meeting will be rescheduled at a date to be announced later. “
No reason for the cancellation was given. As reported in Ed Woltz’s Business License Citation. Aiken attorney Clark McCants III has represented Woltz on the case since December, 2021. While representing defendant Woltz against the plaintiff, Aiken City Solicitor Laura Jordan, McCants III also earned $1200 from the City for representing City Council and City Attorney Gary Smith in two lawsuits related to Project Pascalis.
McCants III also filed the answer on behalf of Smith in the Blake et al vs City of Aiken et al lawsuit. To add to his busy schedule McCants III is also one of two public defendants retained by the city, earning a $3000 a month flat fee for an unspecified number of hours.
Whether McCants III had other engagements is unknown.
State of the City , 2023
The City of Aiken’s 2023 State of the City public presentation is available for viewing on the city’s You Tube channel. For both city and county residents, the most important news was arguably Mayor Rick Osbon’s announcement that the preferred future of the city’s recently vacated, historic, New Deal era Municipal Building at 214 Park Avenue, SW is as a consolidated office for the county Solicitor’s Office.
The Solicitor, who is the local equivalent to a District Attorney, presently has offices scattered throughout the city. As reported in Why is the City of Aiken Toying with 113 Downtown Jobs, negotiations with the county were cut short when the city’s economic development department unilaterally decided to relocate the proposed Project Pascalis conference there. That option would have put the future of the downtown courthouse in doubt, placed 113 associated jobs at risk of leaving the downtown area, and possibly require a $40 million plus courthouse replacement on the outskirts of town.
Mayor Rick Osbon described the Solicitor Office option as a “win-win” situation:
“This evening I can tell you that I have had extensive discussions with the leadership of the Aiken County Government. City council has discussed the best use for the building moving forward and there appears to be a consensus that offering it for sale to the county to house the solicitor’s office is the best path forward. Having the solicitor’s office there would likely play a key role in keeping the county courthouse downtown as Chairman Bunker has suggested. We hope to have an agreement drafted between the city and county for bothcouncils to review and consider in the near future.”
Hotel Aiken
The Hotel Aiken warranted extensive discussion—although the older Beckman Building next door on Laurens drew no mention. According to Mayor Osbon, the plan for the hotel is:
“To let the free market make the decision with lots of input and guidance from the public the experts any and all potential buyers and the city council. Within the next 45 to 60 days the plan is to craft a very broad request for proposals to purchase the hotel. There will be no preconceived ideas about what needs to be done with it, just a list of the parcels, a description of the buildings as they stand, and call for interested parties to make an offer to tell us their plan for it.”
“The RFP will encourage proposers to help our city with the important work of repurposing and complementing our Historic downtown assets. The requests will not suggest a future use for the property. Potential buyers may want it to be a hotel once again. that’d be great. Others may suggest condos or apartments and still others may suggest a great idea that has never occurred to any of us.”
“Here’s another important promise to you. Shortly after those proposals are. received and opened by City staff, those that meet some basic qualifications will be released to the public each each and every one of us will be able to evaluate what the plans are, what purchase price is offered, and what incentives a potential buyer might ask for all of it.”
“Keep in mind the plan the plan is for the private sector to pay for creating a profitable business at that site. In my opinion no proposal that asks the city to foot the bill for the actual Renovations or construction will seriously be considered. That said, if we all review the proposals together as a community and find one worth pursuing we’ll do just that if not we’ll reject them all and start again that’s my promise to you.”
The Lab.
The most discussed and hyped item of the evening was the proposal for a 45,000 square foot Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) office building in downtown Aiken on the current site of Warneke’s Cleaners and the former CC Johnson Drug Store. The city released a lengthy news release on the plan just after the presentation providing more details. SRNL has been managed by Battelle Savannah River Alliance since early 2021.
The facility is proposed to be funded with some or all of the $20 million in plutonium settlement funds set aside by the state legislature for “SRS/National Lab Offsite Infrastructure.” This money is separate from the $25 million in settlement funds for unspecified “Downtown and Northside Redevelopment” projects.
As described in footnote #2 in Pascalis Properties on Aiken City Council Closed Door Agenda, the original proposed setting for the SRNL “offsite campus” was USC-Aiken, but the first mention of locating it downtown was made at the last planned public AMDC meeting.
One notable moment of the lab discussion occurred at 53:30 of the presentation, when Dr. Vahid Majidi, Director of Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) stated:
“I should emphasize that this Savannah River National Laboratory building is being designed for only computational administrative work we don’t have any chemicals hoods or hazardous material in this facility uh….”
After some applause and few laughs from the crowd, Dr. Majidi remarked:
“There is a joke there somewhere right?”
No joke was revealed. It is unknown whether the light humor was related to an incident in January, 2022. After a shipment of unidentified radioactive materials were found to be erroneously labeled as nonradioactive, all offsite shipments of hazardous and radioactive materials. were suspended until corrective actions could be taken.
The unidentified customer, who was expecting a shipment of radioactive materials, discovered the error upon receipt and inspection. The length of the suspension was not identified in the incident report, but the deadline for corrections was identified as Augusta, 2022.
This was not the first time that hazardous materials were inappropriately transported from SRNL to an offsite location.
For example, on April 24, 2018, an SRNL researcher “transported a 125 mL bottle of aluminum powder (estimated at 100 g of material) from the lab to the Aiken County Technical Laboratory in his personal vehicle. The “highly flammable/reactive” material should have been transported in a placarded government vehicle in accordance with federal hazardous material transportation regulations. The “Lesson Learned Statement” was “Mentoring and proper onboarding should be done for new hires so that they are aware that their actions can have consequences concerning hazards and risks.”
Annual New HorizonsRetreat
Today City Council also announced a “New Horizons” public meeting, during which the key agenda items will include Plutonium Settlement funding prioritization of the $25 million plutonium settlement allocation for “Downtown and Northside Redevelopment.” The full agenda packet of the meeting includes budget and revenue data.
Presently, the City of Aiken is pursuing the repurposing of its historic, recently vacated Municipal Building at 214 Park Avenue, SW into a city-owned conference center. At the same time, Aiken County is pursuing purchasing the same building to use as the new, centralized offices of the Aiken County Solicitor’s Office. There has yet to be a single public meeting or City Council hearing regarding the future of this depression-era, New Deal funded structure. If the City of Aiken stays true to its latest plan, Aiken County taxpayers will be saddled with tens of millions of dollars in additional costs to alleviate the serious overcrowding at the Aiken County Courthouse; downtown Aiken will lose more than 110 jobs; and another historic structure will sit vacant.
On July 15, 2022, the following question was posed to Aiken County Council Chairman Gary Bunker:
“If the county were to obtain 214 Park Avenue, SW for office space for the solicitor’s office, etc; can you provide an estimate of how many people who might also patronize downtown Aiken businesses would be working there five days a week, fifty two weeks a year?”
A week later Chairman Bunker responded:
Dear Don,
I will answer this two different ways.
First, if the Courthouse was moved to a new location, then ~110 current courthouse employees would leave downtown Aiken for the proposed University Parkway location.
Second, if the Solicitor’s office moved to 214 Park Avenue, there would be ~40 personnel shifted to this location. This includes ~25 moving from the courthouse (thereby freeing up space in the courthouse) and ~15 consolidating in from the York Street and University Parkway offices.
On Tuesday, August 16, 2022, the following question was submitted to City of Aiken Mayor Rick Osbon:
“Why is the City of Aiken balking at selling its old Municipal Building to Aiken County when doing so would place more than forty full time county workers in that downtown facility; avoid the loss of 113 county jobs from downtown Aiken and the inevitable associated loss of attorneys’ offices located in close proximity to the Judicial Center, and potentially save Aiken County taxpayers tens of millions of dollars?”
Mayor Osbon has yet to answer or even acknowledge receipt of the letter.
Background: The County Seat, Downtown Aiken, and the Aiken County Judicial Center
According to the City of Aiken’s “Master Economic Development Action Plan” (1) developed by the AECOM corporation and approved by Aiken City Council in March, 2021:
The City of Aiken, located just west of the South Carolina/Georgia Border, is slightly over 21 square miles, and is the county seat of Aiken County. (Page 7).
Beyond that singular statement, there is no further reference to The City of Aiken’s status as the county seat; and no associated discussion of the economic impact and benefits, past, present, and future, of being the seat of Aiken County government.
Aiken County has an annual budget of nearly $80 million and employs more than 900 people. Much of that workforce is stationed in and around the City of Aiken, including Sheriff’s Department headquarters, county prison, health department, emergency services, animal shelter, and the Aiken County Government Building on University Parkway that was completed in 2014.
Downtown Aiken is home to the Aiken County Courthouse, the main branch of Aiken-Barnwell-Bamberg-Edgefield (ABBE) regional library system, and the county’s historical museum. In 2014, the downtown Parkway District lost the jobs located at the county administrative building located at 828 Richland Avenue, West when the new University Parkway building opened on the edge of town.
That same year complaints of overcrowding at the Courthouse began, and Aiken County Council initiated discussions to find alternatives. One of the alternatives then, and now, is a new of judicial center on county-owned land adjacent to the Aiken County Government Building. (2)
The Aiken County Courthouse was built in 1881 and renovated in the 1980s and is the center of the county’s judicial system (3). More than 110 people work in the historic courthouse, which remains one of the most prominent and iconic buildings in downtown Aiken. An additional micro-economy of attorney’s offices exist around it, further adding economic vibrancy to the downtown.
Images of the Aiken County Courthouse over its 140-year history. Images used with permission from courthousehistory.com
The Future of the Old Municipal Building
To alleviate the overcrowding, Aiken County has negotiated with the City of Aiken to purchase the historic “Municipal Building” at 214 Park Avenue, SW; which functioned as Aiken’s City Hall for over three-quarters of a century. (4) Linda Johnson, President of the Historic Aiken Foundation, describes the building this way:
“This Depression-era brick structure served as Aiken’s municipal building from 1939 until 2022 and once housed Aiken’s Fire Headquarters and Police Barracks. The original doors from which fire engines raced out still front the building on Park Avenue, while remnants of the police station and its ‘calaboose’ stand guard along the Alley.”
Johnson added that this former City Hall was “built on the site of the Aiken Opera house and Aiken’s original fire headquarters which were both destroyed by fire,” and that it was funded by the Roosevelt administration’s New Deal agency the Public Works Administration.
Newspaper Archive image of October 25, 1939 headline in Aiken Standard (5)
In mid April of this year the City of Aiken completed its consolidation of all city offices into a new, centralized City Hall building at 111 Chesterfield Street, South. According to Aiken City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh, the cost to buy and renovate the former Henderson Hotel and Regions Bank Building was $13.75 million. But the move left the city as the owner of the empty, two story Municipal Building.
With the Municipal Building a mere block and half from the Aiken County Courthouse, it is an ideal location to alleviate overcrowding in the county judicial system. So Aiken County has sought to buy the old Municipal Building, and keep it for its original purpose—office space for the most basic and essential government functions, the criminal justice system.
In this scenario, the building would be occupied by forty five or more full time employees of the Aiken County’s Solicitor’s Office; with its annual budget of $2.7 million per year to prosecute crime, provide assistance to crime victims, conduct pre-trial interventions, operate the drug court, conduct juvenile arbitration, and help recover funds for any recipient of a bad check. Consolidation of the office after years of employees being scattered around the city is also expected to increase the efficiency of office operations.
The current Second Circuit Solicitor is Bill Weeks, who was first elected in 2020 to oversee prosecutors in Aiken, Bamberg, and Barnwell Counties. According to Bunker, Weeks “thinks internal improvements to make the space suitable will be minimal. Outside of security improvements, and perhaps some shifting of drywall to optimize the office space, it’s almost (but not quite) ready to be occupied ‘as is.” The Municipal Building also houses large conference rooms ideal for legal planning and plea meetings.
City of Aiken website image of historic Municipal Building
The County Seat Privately Hatches Its Own Plans.
Unfortunately for the County’s judicial system needs, and county and city taxpayers, a handful of unelected officials in the City of Aiken decided in April of this year to designate the Municipal Building for a new, $15-20 million, publicly owned and privately operated conference center, proposed as part of the $100 million plus demolition and redevelopment endeavor known as Project Pascalis.
In a story first reported by Aiken Standard reporter Dede Biles on April 14, 2022, Aiken Municipal Development Director (AMDC) Tim O’Briant unilaterally announced the plan to relocate the conference center previously proposed for the Newberry Hall and Warneke Cleaner properties to the old City Hall. He attributed the idea to Aiken Design Review Board (DRB) Chairman McDonald Law, and Biles quoted him saying:
“I’m as giddy as a schoolboy about how this is going to make all of downtown, instead of just The Alley, such an exciting place to hang out, live, work and play. It’s going to be fantastic.’” (5)
While elected city officials acknowledged the proposal was just that, a proposal and not a done deal, architects working for the AMDC’s chosen developers RPM Development Partners had a set of conceptual design drawings ready for the commission’s first and only Project Pascalis public meetings on April 20, 2022. It looked like a done deal, and no elected officials attended the meetings to offer any words to the contrary.
The AMDC’s announcement did not follow any public process, it was unilateral and decided through back channels. On March 20, 2022 DRB Chairman Law submitted comments to O’Briant to be forwarded to the Project Pascalis developer’s Design Review Team for the proposed complex of apartments, parking garage, and conference center. The comments were a followup to a March 17th DRB public workshop. The minutes of that public workshop contain no mention of the possibility of using the Municipal Building as a conference center. (6).
In the email, Law offered the following suggestion:
“I believe the Plan B option, relocating the Conference Center into the Municipal Building block while freeing up space in the apartment block, should be seriously considered to address some of these concerns with the scale of the new building along a main thoroughfare.”
Law added in a subsequent email:
“Adding the extra depth by relocating the Conference Center seems to shake loose a lot of things, especially on Richland Ave. where we have the complaints about scale.” (8)
AMDC Executive Director Tim O’Briant is also the city’s Economic Development Director, responsible for using “all available resources to assist small business owners and attract investors to the City of Aiken’s downtown.” (9) In the case of the Municipal Building though, O’Briant has not indicated they view Aiken County as a source of investment and jobs.
A month later, as the project began to experience increased public opposition, Bunker told the Aiken Standard:
“It is still my belief that the details of Project Pascalis are not set in stone at this point, so I think we should continue discussions with the city.” (10)
The Other, “Not cheap” Judicial Center Options.
The City’s pursuit of a new conference center at the Municipal Building would likely cost Aiken County tens of millions of dollars.
A second alternative for Aiken County is to buy and renovate the historic Charles Simon’s Federal Courthouse (11) at 213 Park Avenue, West, also a block and a half from The Courthouse. But this building may not even be available to the county, and at present there are no cost estimates for repurposing it for county judicial functions. While the county’s appraised value ($475,000) for the Simon’s building is similar to that of the Municipal Building ($500,000), the former is not office-ready and would likely require substantial renovations, perhaps similar to the $13.75 million renovation of the Henderson Hotel for a new City Hall.
A third choice is to buy and renovate the old Farmer’s and Merchants Bank building at the corner of Laurens and Park, almost three blocks from the courthouse. This building is currently leased by Bank of America, which recently announced it will close that branch. Again, there are no cost estimates for renovation, and the county assessor’s appraised value of the property is more than two-thirds ($823,000) greater than the Municipal Building. It, too, would require renovations to convert banking space to judicial office space.
The final and most expensive alternative is a new County Judicial Center located on University Parkway next to the new County administration complex. The county owns thirty-one acres of property adjacent to its looming headquarters; land purchased in 2011 for $1.1 million to provide for such contingencies. The estimated cost of a new judicial center is $30-40 million depending on size, but this is based on costs from other counties prior to inflationary impacts on building supplies and labor costs.
According to Bunker, the $30-40 million cost estimates are, “only at a very high ‘parametric’ level. This is because we have data on recent courthouses across South Carolina that were combined to get this +/- 50% type number. At this stage, this is simply to communicate the ‘order of magnitude’ cost. In other words, it will be a lot, and not cheap.”
Conclusion:
If Aiken County moves to a new Judicial Center on University Parkway, at least 113 jobs will be lost from downtown Aiken and the most prominent, historic building in downtown Aiken will be the latest vacant building.
The Clock Tower, Aiken County Courthouse, photo by Gary Dexter.
If the City of Aiken decides it will not sell the Municipal Building to Aiken County, that decision will require Aiken County taxpayers to spend tens of millions of dollars to upgrade judicial departments, probably requiring either a tax increase or budget cuts to other county departments.
The move would also likely lead to an inevitable exodus of private attorney practices from the downtown area located in close proximity to the courthouse. The impact on downtown businesses of losing the Aiken County Courthouse from downtown Aiken, where it has been since the 1880’s, has not been measured, assessed, or even considered by the City Council, City Manager or his economic development department.
The potential economic and civic benefits of converting the Municipal Building into a city-owned conference center are highly uncertain. One hospitality study commissioned by the AMDC predicted only five to ten conferences per year of 150 people or more. (12) The remaining business would derive from smaller groups. A second study estimated an annual operating loss of $300,000 for the City of Aiken, and presumed a focus not on conventions and trade shows, but banquets and local events that could be held at smaller venues. (13)
On the other hand, the certain and clearly-defined benefits of transferring the building to the Aiken County Government—for use as a sorely-needed and cost effective adjunct to the existing Aiken County Courthouse—are obvious, and are reinforced by the principles of common sense, good judgment, and civic virtue. The Solicitor’s Office is an essential branch of government that works to protect the safety of all county residents, and assisting it in its mission should be viewed as a civic responsibility by the Aiken County seat of government, the City of Aiken.
(12) Proposed Conference Center Market Analysis Aiken, Summary of Findings, March 18, 2022. HVS Convention, Sports & Entertainment Facility Consulting.
