Aiken leaders pick a developer to revitalize historic downtown hotel
AIKEN, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - Monday was the day Hotel Aiken embarked on a new fate.
The Aiken City Council decided to enter negotiations with the Oliver Group to revitalize and revive the dormant and decaying downtown hotel.
It was a 6-1 vote with only council member Gregory voting against it.
It’s a big change of fate for the hotel whose planned demolition was the centerpiece of the so-called Project Pascalis as recently as 2022. The hotel was to be torn down to make room for hotel and retail development that would have been styled to look historic but would have actually been new.
But after plowing right into the middle of controversy, it was Project Pascalis that faced demolition – sparking a legal challenge and drawing questions from preservationists.
From that failure emerged the resolve to preserve the hotel, but the city owned it at that point and needed a developer.
At Monday’s meeting, Craig Bradford and Ethan Orley spoke from the Oliver Group, which has a 15-year history of redeveloping hotels across the Southeast
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The company has particular expertise in redeveloping historic properties, like the Hotel Clermont in Atlanta and the Oliver Hotel in Knoxville
Its focus is boutique independent hotels.
Once revitalized, leaders hope Hotel Aiken is a catalyst in the rest of downtown.
Linda Johnson, president of Aiken’s historic foundation, was relieved.
She is the one who put the hotel on the national historic , and she’s been in the battle to save the hotel for three years.
She said she thinks the Oliver Group is a great pick.
“We are beyond excited,” she said. “Three years ago, we didn’t have good things going on in the city. We had a lot of historic buildings that were slated for demolition, and we got that turned around. The city did the right thing. They got a broker, they did a nationwide search and after going through a couple of rounds of interviews and proposals, we finally have a path forward.”
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She said buildings like the old hotel deserve to be preserved, and now the city has a developer with a lot of experience in doing just that.
“I feel like they’ll understand what needs to be done,” she said. “They’ve done this so many different places. ... They understand that every town is unique and has its own character, and they want to tailor what they do with our buildings. To Aiken, that is so important. We want Aiken to stay Aiken.”
Now in the area of the hotel, “we had this whole half a block that was a bit derelict and there was no reason for people to stroll along that part of the block.”
Now she can envision people going to stores or restaurants further down the block coming up to enjoy the block once it’s revitalized.
She’s especially happy it’s going to remain a hotel, but she would have been happy with another use, as long as the building was preserved.
“It would have been fine for it to be apartments. It would have been OK for it to be offices,” she said. “It’s neat that it’s going to be a hotel because the Hotel Aiken has this 125-year history in Aiken, and now it’s going to be continuing it.”
Looking ahead, she said there are other buildings her group wants to honor, “so that this is a whole block of historic buildings that preserve its character.”
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