AIKEN, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - Plans to add apartments, townhomes, parking garages, office buildings, and more, were approved on Monday night for the old Aiken Hospital site.Applause rang out when the unanimous vote was approved. It’s all on the list to add a work, live, and play space to the city.“As a teenager, you ran up and down these streets, and now you are a part of a development, and making a difference is an amazing feeling,” said Tracey Turner, CEO of Turner Developments.The main topic to figure ou...
AIKEN, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - Plans to add apartments, townhomes, parking garages, office buildings, and more, were approved on Monday night for the old Aiken Hospital site.
Applause rang out when the unanimous vote was approved. It’s all on the list to add a work, live, and play space to the city.
“As a teenager, you ran up and down these streets, and now you are a part of a development, and making a difference is an amazing feeling,” said Tracey Turner, CEO of Turner Developments.
The main topic to figure out before the vote was if the hospital and nursing building should be locally preserved to ensure the old property can’t be destroyed by development if plans change.
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“You’re five years late in doing this. This is a terrible performance on preservation,” said one outspoken member during the meeting.
Judah Lando, who lives close to the hospital site, said: “Here we are- we can protect these buildings now instead of revisiting this in a year when everybody is upset and up in arms when a different RFP comes before the council.”
One person’s historical preservation may not be for others.
“I heard a story recently about how they got black nurses at that hospital, they were shamed into it. Why should good white nurses carry the bedpans for black patients,” said Doug Slaughter, pastor of 2nd Baptist Church in Aiken. “If that’s the history this community wants to preserve then I’m not for it.”
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Slaughter says the historic guidelines hold back progress.
“I’m grateful that this north side is not going to be part of a historical grid beyond what it already is because it would put worker folk out of home ownership,” he said.
Overall, to put or not to put on the local registry is still on the table the way the developer wanted it to be.
“We’ve always been on board with saving the hospital, saving the nurses corridors, but we didn’t want to put it on the local historic registry immediately,” said Turner.
Now, with approval, Turner says he’s working with his engineers to make the project a reality and says if all goes well they could break ground by the end of the year.
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