Aiken City Council, municipal development commission to meet together on Project Pascalis
Jun. 11—The Aiken City Council and Municipal Development Commission are set to meet in executive session Monday to receive information regarding contractual negotiations for Project Pascalis.
On the agenda for the Aiken City Council meeting is a notice that the council and the commission will meet together for an executive session at 5 p.m. Monday in the city's municipal building located at 214 Park Ave.
Project Pascalis is a name used by the city and its related entities to describe the planned redevelopment of a block bounded by Laurens Street, Richland Avenue, Newberry Street and Park Avenue. Plans are to build a hotel, apartments, parking garage and conference center in the block.
The meeting will come two hours before the city council meets and one day before the corporation meets.
Neither group is expected to take action on the project at their meetings.
Action on Project Pascalis is not on either agenda and adding an action item would require a vote of two-thirds of the members present.
Tim O'Briant, economic development director for the city, told the municipal development commissioners in May that the next step for the project is to bring new designs for the project to the city's Design Review Board. He added the new designs could be presented to that board at its June 21 meeting.
He said the ball was in the court of the Aiken City Council regarding the potential use of the municipal building on Park Avenue as a conference center. O'Briant said City Manager Stuart Bedenbaugh would be working to get a sense of whether the council would want to do that or not.
On the agenda for the city council meeting are second and final readings of ordinances annexing and zoning a property on Dougherty Road, annexing and zoning a property at the intersection of Whiskey Road and Powderhouse Road, approving an incentives application for senior apartments to be constructed in Southview Estates and setting the millage and establishing the city's budget for the next fiscal year.
Bedenbaugh said Thursday that the property at the intersection of Whiskey Road and Powderhouse Road would be across Whiskey Road from the Holiday Inn and contain a 50,000 square foot grocery store to be named later.
The agenda adds it will contain 20,000 square feet for outparcels and 48 townhomes behind the grocery store.
Bedenbaugh said the city's property tax rate would remain the same as it has been since 1989.
An ordinance making year-end adjustments to the city's budget for the current fiscal year is set to be introduced at the meeting.
The city council is also expected to issue a proclamation for Juneteeth, recognize a scout project, receive an update on the downtown development association and receive a smoke free certification from the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.
Requests for a June 26 fireworks display at Generations Park and to use penny sales tax funds to repair a well along Pine Log Road are also on the agenda. As is the acceptance of a grant from the South Carolina Rural Infrastructure Authority for a storm water project.
Bedenbaugh said the grant was $500,000 for a project to stabilize a bank of dirt between Aiken Estates and Hitchcock Woods.
The city council meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday at the municipal building located at 214 Park Ave.
