Aiken Design Review Board to review Project Pascalis plans Tuesday evening | Politics

Aiken’s Design Review Board will get a look at plans for Project Pascalis on Tuesday evening.

The Design Review Board will hold a work session at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 21, in Room 315 of the new Aiken Municipal Building located at 111 Chesterfield St. 

The meeting has been called at the request of the potential developers, Lat Purser and Associates, Raines and ODA Architecture, to give the Design Review Board a chance to offer feedback on plans for the project before plans are submitted for approval. 

The plans that the Design Review Board will be presented with call for the redevelopment of the block surrounded by Laurens Street, Park Avenue, Newberry Street and Richland Avenue in downtown Aiken.

The potential plans call for the demolition of the existing Hotel Aiken and two smaller buildings on Laurens Street at the corner of Richland Avenue and Laurens Street and its replacement by a $25 million, 100-room hotel. 

Original plans called for the hotel to be five stories tall but after feedback from the board and the public, plans were changed to keep the hotel at four stories. As a result of the change, the hotel will be extended closer to Bee Lane and also further south. 

A courtyard and a narrow alley to access it would be constructed between the hotel and existing buildings along Laurens Street. 

Plans also call for the demolition of several buildings between Bee Lane and the corner of Richland Avenue and Newberry Street, and for the project to extend into Newberry Street toward Park Avenue to create open, festival space. 

At the corner of Richland Avenue and Newberry Street, a 117-unit, five-story apartment building with a parking deck inside of it would be built. The structure would feature new commercial offerings at the corner of Richland Avenue and Bee Lane and along Newberry Street. 

Original plans showed Newberry Street being a north-bound-only street for vehicular traffic; however, plans for the project to extend into Newberry Street were adjusted after public outcry. The most recent plans show the street will continue to be open for two-way traffic and parking, but not in the traditional historic Aiken grid.

The 381-space parking deck could be accessed from a new service alley (called Bee Lane extended on some plans) or from the existing Bee Lane.

The McGhee Building facade would remain under the plan.  

The last major component of the plan is the conversion of the former city municipal building into a two-story conference center. Plans call for the building to be extended from its current location to Newberry Street. 

No votes will be taken at the meeting. The Design Review Board will consider approving the plans for the project at a future meeting.  

Tuesday’s meeting will come eight days after the city appointed three people to the Design Review Board at its first June meeting.