Downtown Paper

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Stories by Stephen D. Hale, Design by Matt Socha

Beautiful Downtown Aiken - Is No Accident

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iken has one of the most charming and vibrant downtowns in the Southeast. But, it wasn’t always like that. Twenty years ago downtown Aiken barely resembled the bustling burg you see today. By the mid-1980s downtown was down. More than a quarter of the stores were empty. Gooseneck light poles and bare concrete dominated the view, and faded, empty storefronts spoke of decay. Worse yet, a mall was coming south of town. You could almost hear the theme from “Jaws;” downtown was in danger of dying.

Twenty years ago downtown Aiken barely resembled the beautiful burg you see today. Joe Lista photo

A Modest Beginning M ayor Fred Cavanaugh remembers the first baby steps that brought Aiken back from the edge of downtown disintegration. As early as 1986 the city began a year-and-a-half process of writing a Comprehensive Plan designed to anticipate problems and to make improvements over the next 20 years. It was presented to the public in May of 1988. Among its recommendations were to preserve the city’s unique parkways and other greenspace, to use the areas behind downtown buildings for parking, establish an architectural review board, create an inventory of historic properties, offer property tax incentives to landlords to fix up stores and residences and, in order to provide more effective downtown leadership – start a downtown business association. Lofty goals, but plans only gather dust in bookcases without leadership. Then City Councilman Cavanaugh remembers a call from downtown businessman Bob Bradford on August 6, 1988, “that sparked a renaissance.” They met in Bradford’s Spiced Apple restaurant in the Alley and discussed his concern about the many empty stores and the future of downtown. The two men began to draw others into a series of increasingly urgent meetings.

They didn’t know it then, but that’s when the whole city began to rally to save the downtown they loved. Bradford arranged a trip for about two dozen Aikenites to visit his friend, Greg Walker, the downtown manager in Greenwood, S.C. The group came back filled with enthusiasm for what could be applied to downtown Aiken. A few days later in City Manager Roland Windham’s office the group decided that Aiken needed a downtown organization and a manager who could get things turned around. The group agreed that Aiken banker John Cunningham was the leader they needed and a delegation made up of Mayor Odell Weeks, USC Aiken Chancellor Bob Alexander, SCE&G manager Sid Ballentine and businessman Ed Farmer was formed to recruit him. “Mayor Weeks was really concerned about downtown Aiken, and you could see the worry on his face,” remembers Cunningham. Cunningham says he agreed to lead a downtown organization only if he was given city-wide support. At a meeting in Chancellor Alexander’s board room that included every City Council member, representatives of the Chamber, the business community and others, Cunningham says, “I went around the table and asked each Council member if they would

commit their personal support. Each of them did, and they all held up to their bargain.” Says Mayor Cavanaugh, “With John and his board of directors’ leadership, joined with the Aiken City government and the Chamber of Commerce, the downtown began moving in a positive direction.” Cunningham’s group grew into the Downtown Aiken Development Corporation – later renamed the Aiken Downtown Development Association (ADDA). Native Aikenite Bill Cullum was hired as the ADDA’s first executive director. He was followed over the next two decades by Cindy Senkowsky Delaney, Janet Augeri Morris and Carla Cloud. The ADDA’s board of merchants and concerned citizens began to work with the city developing a vision of what Aiken could be. “We came together and set goals; what could we accomplish this year? in five years?, in fifteen years?” remembers Mayor Cavanaugh. Then Public Works Director and now Aiken City Manager Roger LeDuc remembers that the city invited three architectural firms to provide ideas on what downtown streets should look like. In mid-1990 City Council opened discussions on developing a strategic plan. In June 1992 a 40-person delegation traveled to Rock Hill to learn from their

strategic plan, and the results it had begun to produce. That September 21 members of Aiken’s Strategic Plan Steering Committee met to begin the task of shaping Aiken’s future. In the spring of 1993 about 240 people came to Aiken’s first public strategic plan meeting where Charleston Mayor Joe Riley praised their efforts and told them that the vitality of downtown is critical to the future success of the city as a whole. Over the next six months a dozen committees grew into four prongs of the emerging plan: The Business City, The Family City, The Green City and The Historic City. One group, led by downtown banker Tim Simmons, drew up a long list of what they loved about Aiken, and what they thought needed fixing. Others went around the state looking at what was working for other cities and they invited municipal innovators to come walk Aiken’s streets. They took photos of everything – because you can walk by things like gaudy light fixtures, overhead wires and dilapidated dumpsters every day without noticing them, but they show up when captured in pictures. Reconvened in September, the strategic plan’s steering committee took the committees hundreds of goals and objectives and placed them into See Beginning, page 2

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“We came together and set goals; what could we accomplish this year? in five years?, in fifteen years?” remembers Mayor Cavanaugh.

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In 1988 John Cunningham (right), then President of Palmetto Federal and the first Chairman of the Aiken Downtown Development Association, walks downtown with Ben Boozer, then executive director of the South Carolina Downtown Development Association and a nationally recognized expert at downtown revitalization.

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The Downtown Aiken Digest

November 30, 2008

Beginning...from page 1 one of the four “City” task forces and then set priorities and completion targets. Among many other things, the plan “ratified” the city’s streetscaping initiative already underway downtown, says LeDuc. Throughout this time the city was putting up more attractive street lights, planting trees, building new sidewalks and they approved facade grants for renovating storefronts and putting up colorful awnings that brightened up the streets. Now we had a plan and several hundred volunteers to carry it out, but we needed some money to make it work. The ADDA contracted with

Into the 1970s, downtown Aiken still looked much like the downtown Aiken of the late 1950s.

First Community Development of Atlanta to carry out an ambitious fundraising drive they called “Aiken 20/20.” Aiken 20/20 exceeded its $3.5 million goal over a five-year period campaign, providing the needed financing for the strategic plan’s goals in economic development, education and downtown development. Some of the direct benefits included the original marketing for the highly successful Aiken Edgefield Economic Development Partnership, the organization that grew into today’s Public Education Partners, downtown streetscape improvements,

Joe Lista photo

leaders, we will be the general contractor, and we can overcome the unknown factors because we can do things on our own schedule. In one example, for the new lampposts that were among the first improvements, the city bought the poles and the globes and tore out the concrete and then hired the South Carolina Electric and Gas Co., to wire them up. The private companies loved the cooperative agreement because it took the risk out of their jobs. The city told the companies just what was expected and promised them that a check would be ready as soon as they were finished. “We’d have a check ready on Friday when they were done,” says LeDuc. “They didn’t have to put out money for materials and they just came in and got the job done and left with a check. They loved it. We loved it.” Perhaps most important, the city worked with the local merchants. City officials, ADDA members and Aiken business leaders had been to other cities and learned from them. “We heard horror stories about how other cities had changed their downtowns with all the best of intentions and disrupted business so much that

within two years they had no merchants left,” recalls LeDuc. Several visits around the state showed city leaders that many other towns did the whole downtown in one job – tearing everything up for a year or more – and by the time the work was finished many merchants were out of business. The flexibility of Publitization allowed the city to work in easily doable “chunks.” They would tear out the space in front of stores halfa-block at a time on one side of the street and they promised each business that they would finish the work in front of their shop in a month. While two or three merchants were inconvenienced for a month, the rest of downtown was still busy with customers. Also, at critical times of the year, Christmas season and Masters Week especially, the city stopped work so that shoppers could easily get to all the stores, restaurants and hotels. In the same way when a merchant made a commitment to remodel their building the city had the flexibility to go out of sequence to do the work in front of that store at the same time. Private contractors could never work on that kind of

“We heard horror stories about how other cities had changed their downtowns with all the best of intentions and disrupted business so much that within two years they had no merchants left.” - Aiken City Manager Roger LeDuc

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One of Many Municipal Awards E arly in this stage, at a moment when it looked as if further progress might be priced out of reach, the City’s Public Works Department invented the idea of “Publitizing.” The city had drawn up plans to plant more trees downtown, to put in new sidewalks and encourage merchants to improve the attractiveness of their buildings. But as LeDuc remembers, “The bid for the first part of the work came in at over $200,000. That was as much as the budget for the whole project.” The link that pulled the chain together was the idea that the city would be the general contractor. Public Works and other employees would do the preparation work and the scheduling, then hire companies to do things they didn’t have the expertise to do. Says LeDuc, “Without Publitization we would never have been able to do it.” Why was the bid so high? he asked rhetorically. Mostly because of the unknowns. When a company takes up the sidewalk they have no idea what’s below it. The uncertainty of what they will have to do forces contractors into bidding to cover the unknown. OK then, thought city

a new airport terminal and purchase of an empty downtown building which is now the showpiece Aiken Center for the Arts. To invest in the infrastructure and beautification that would spur downtown growth, in 1994 City Council created a 15-year Tax Increment Finance District (TIF). Essentially, the city borrowed $1.5 million to pay for improvements. Those improvements increased the value of downtown properties. Then, the higher property tax revenue was used to pay back the loan. That simple idea made so much possible.

In order to revitalize the downtown without ruining it, the City of Aiken Department of Public Works invented the concept of “Publitization.” The City became the prime contractor on downtown “Streetscaping,” in half-block sections that only blocked business entrances for one month. This also gave the City the flexibility to halt work during the heavy business months around the Aiken Triple Crown and the Masters and the Holiday Season. During this same time many cities strangled their merchants for two years at a time and lost what they were trying to save. Aiken won yet another of 13 consecutive Municipal Cup Awards for this innovation, 10 more than any other city has ever won in a row, and one of 16 out of a 19-year period. schedule. They have to get in and get out to make a profit, so they tear up the whole area at one time. By being the general

contractor the city was able to cut costs by more than 50 percent and no businesses had to close. The City of Aiken was awarded the Municipal Cup by

the South Carolina Municipal Association for “Publitizing,” but the real award came with a thriving downtown.

Aiken Corporation O

Aiken Chamber of Commerce Photo

A modern new home for the Greater Aiken Chamber of Commerce was one of five major projects that came out of the grassroots Aiken 20/20 “Vision for the Future” fundraising effort.

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ut of the city’s strategic plan came the Aiken Corporation. “It became obvious to all of us that the entire city needed a larger focus on economic development, larger than just the downtown area,” says retired banker Wade Brodie, among the founders of the Aiken Corporation. The ADDA created the Aiken Corporation to promote industrial development, downtown development and to increase housing density in the downtown area. In something akin to a change of command ceremony, The Aiken Corporation became the umbrella organization and the ADDA agreed to become one of its free-standing committees with its own board of directors. Brodie explained that among the top priorities of the Aiken

Corporation was to increase housing density downtown. They started a very successful incentive program for people to fix up apartments on the second floors above downtown shops. They also began rehabilitating dilapidated housing downtown and created incentives for private investors to do the same. “When we began, every block of our older downtown neighborhoods had Dilapidated houses,” says Brodie. “Now you ride around and nearly every block has restored homes. Dozens of houses have been transformed.” In time the City of Aiken, the Aiken Corporation, the Community Development & Improvement Corporation, the Aiken Housing Authority and Second Baptist Church joined in a campaign to eliminate all substandard housing in

Aiken within a decade – and that transformation is ahead of schedule and spreading relentlessly. All of this activity was spread out over several years so someone could be forgiven if they just saw each part of it separately, but they were all parts of a tide of change driven by the people of the town. One of the grandest parts was an idea for a blockbuster public/private/non-profit partnership. Working together, the City of Aiken, Washington Group International, the Aiken Corporation and the Aiken Community Playhouse pulled off an unprecedented partnership that resulted in the erection of a beautiful building on Newberry Street that hosts both the Washington Group’s See Corporation, page 3

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November 30, 2008

The Downtown Aiken Digest

Page 03

Corporation...from page 2 throughout the downtown – spurred on by the progress around them – were making major investments in their own businesses. Success bred success and as more people came downtown to shop, more and finer shops and restaurants opened to serve them. Beginning with the Erb family’s West Side Bowery in 1981 and Up Your Alley in 1982, “the Alley,” once a dingy place to be avoided has become a charming centerpiece for downtown life. Spreading out from that nexus, today there are a dozen restaurants and pubs in the two-block area in the center of downtown. “The Alley” itself has been transformed from a dingy place to be avoided to the charming centerpiece of downtown life.

The Aiken Corporation, the City of Aiken, the Aiken Community Playhouse and Washington Group International pulled off an unprecedented partnership that resulted in the erection of this beautiful combined corporate headquarters and performing arts theater as the centerpiece of the Newberry Street Festival Center. A barren parking lot ten years ago, the Festival Center is now the center of downtown celebrations and is a lovely addition to downtown all year long.

ADDA photos

Working together, the City of Aiken, Washington Group International, the Aiken Corporation and the Aiken Community Playhouse pulled off an unprecedented partnership that resulted in the erection of a beautiful building on Newberry Street.

ADDA photo

international corporate headquarters and a large modern theater for the playhouse group and the city. The two share a grand lobby that is ideal for pre and post theatrical festivities. At the same time the city transformed the once-drab street in front of the theater into the lively Newberry Street Festival Site. An arbor and a popular fountain were put in the center of the redesigned street and hidden infrastructure was installed under it for the convenience of festival vendors. Once built, festivals began to come, including the immensely popular Lobster Races and celebrations on most national holidays. By this time shop owners, financial firms, real estate companies and many others

The Aiken Corporation, the City of Aiken and others took what was literally a junkyard in the interior of the block between Newberry Street and Richland Avenue and created prized townhouses, many off-street parking spaces and a sense of safety that was not there before.

Eyesore Becomes a Showplace A for decades. They were good business citizens but years worth of abandoned cars had become unsightly. In the center of the block beside the body shop was a dark and uninviting series of run-down allies. While the shops on Laurens Street on the other side of the block were inviting, the area behind them

had deteriorated. The city worked with the Parker family to purchase and then clean up their property and Wade Brodie talked with all the other property owners on the block to help the city restore the center of the property. The Aiken Corporation asked the city for a $300,000 grant to buy

that property. Now attractive for development, a builder bought the old Parker property from the Aiken Corporation and put in six luxury townhouses. Within a few more years another eight high-end condominiums were built on the same block. All of the taxation from that new

luxury housing construction goes to the TIF to pay back the loan that made the improvements possible. Once transformed the city put in 40 free parking places and named the area Arbor Terrace. “Arbor Terrace transformed that area right in the middle of downtown,” says LeDuc.

“It took a lot of cooperation and vision on the part of the city, the Aiken Corporation and the property owners. That investment wouldn’t have happened without the cooperation of the many individuals who worked to turn it around.”

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nother ambitious downtown project by the Aiken Corporation and the city is now known as Arbor Terrace, a pretty name for what just a few years ago was a blighted area. The Parker family had operated a successful auto body shop on Newberry Street

The City of Aiken offered substantial facade grants to businesses that would improve the aesthetics of their buildings and also to remodel second floor spaces for apartments and offices. Downtown property owner Bruce Duchossois remodeled the rear of Malia’s Restaurant into a beautiful garden and transformed the second floor into a great place to live and do business. Several other property owners have followed suite and now downtown Aiken is becoming a place to live, not just visit.

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The Downtown Aiken Digest

November 30, 2008

A progression of events that shaped downtown Aiken: • In September of 1987 Ben Boozer, the Director of the South Carolina Downtown Development Association, told city leaders that Aiken’s parkways are our great treasure. He had never seen as many fine specialty shops in any other downtown but that Aiken needed to take advantage of its assets. He urged Aiken to join Main Street USA, which promotes economic revitalization through historic preservation. • That same month the city began putting traffic lights on poles with arms that extend over the street, eliminating part of the overhead spaghetti of power lines. That concept continues today with the ongoing burial of all utility lines. • In May of 1988 the city began a $30,000 makeover for The Alley section of downtown shops and restaurants, widening sidewalks from three to six feet and even eight feet in some places, repaving the street, adding trees, and planter boxes and replacing water lines. • Meetings with the S.C. Department of Transportation were held. What should the crosswalks and sidewalks look like? What color should the paver bricks be? Should we allow parking in the alley? Even what should the trash cans look like? • One night the city closed off Park Avenue and put up five different types of light poles and asked people to vote on them. Different people offered designs for arbor ways around town. Many people offered their own expertise. • Out of all that grew the Streetscaping initiative that put in new lamp posts and sidewalks, planted trees and changed the look of downtown streets, starting with Laurens. • In August of 1988 downtown business owner Bob Bradford met with City Councilman Fred Cavanaugh and the two arranged a fact-finding tour of Greenwood’s downtown revitalization. • That fall Aiken banker John Cunningham agreed to lead an effort to form a downtown organization. Out of that eventually grew The Aiken Downtown Development Association (ADDA), at first called the Downtown Aiken Development Committee. Its board of merchants and concerned citizens began to work with the city developing a vision of what Aiken could be. • That year the city started a policy of planting two trees for every one lost. • Along South Boundary they began a five year program to plant six live oaks a year to help preserve Aiken’s cherished “Tunnel of Trees.” In the same time period the Aiken Chamber of Commerce began their “Putting Down Roots,” program through which new businesses made donations to a fund that paid the city to plant more trees. • In the summer of 1989 the S.C. Downtown Development Association returned with their recommendations, emphasizing that the ad-hoc Downtown Development Committee needed to become a non-profit corporation with legal standing and with a downtown manager. The new corporation should institute financial incentives for property owners to make architectural improvements that would include bright new paint jobs and colorful awnings. They urged that Aiken needed a strategic plan for downtown, one that emphasizes the cultural, social and political reasons that make the downtown the heart of any community. • Next, Aiken kicked off the state’s first curb-side recycling plan, an idea that would win the city a Municipal Cup for government innovation and would over time bring dozens of officials of other cities to town. • In January of 1990 popular S.C. Governor Carol Campbell lauded Aiken and the ADDA for joining the Main Street USA program and announced the offer of technical assistance and a grant to help it along. • Later that year nine businesses accepted grant money to return the façades of their buildings to their original look. That process got a huge boost when new resident and thoroughbred owner Bruce Duchossois bought one of the larger buildings on Laurens Street. He restored the original façade but also remodeled the second floor for offices and apartments and transformed the dilapidated rear of the building into a showplace garden and dining area – an example to everyone of what can be done. • At the same time the city began its first “Streetscaping,” experiment, a half-block at a time starting along Park Avenue from Bee Lane to Laurens. New wider sidewalks were put in after burying conduit to service new light poles, eight new trees were planted, new trash receptacles and benches enhanced the look. • In November of 1990 one of the greatest proponents of downtown revitalization, City Manager Roland Windham, announced his retirement. After several months, and 240 applications, City Council hired Roland’s Assistant City Manager, Steve Thompson, to take over the top job. • In early 1991 city planners went from preparing for thousands of new residents expected to build and operate a new reactor at the Savannah River Site. But, within two years at the end of the Cold War, instead of adding 12,000 employees, the site lost nearly that many. • In February of 1991 City Council passed a strict tree ordinance. • A month later, after a three year effort, City Council unanimously passed an historic preservation ordinance. It protects property values by forming historic districts and designating historic sites to be protected. • In September of 1992 twenty one members of Aiken’s Strategic Plan Steering Committee met to begin the task of shaping Aiken’s future. • That same month, while making the rounds of area civic clubs, Bill Cullum, executive director of the Downtown Aiken Development Corporation pointed to many positives, but said, “This achievement hasn’t happened overnight. We’re just now beginning to see the fruits of three years worth of work.” He said that so far the city and his organization have seen improvements in downtown streets, sidewalks, curbs, lighting, street trees and plantings, street furniture (benches), directories and trash containers, planter boxes, traffic lights and their poles and the removal of utility lines. • Next up, said Cullum, will be monuments, sculptures, fountains, parks and plazas, banners and flags, outdoor cafes, street vendors and public art. • Spring of 1993 heralded the anticipated kickoff of Aiken’s downtown Strategic Plan. Two hundred and forty people heard Charleston Mayor Joe Riley praise their efforts and tell them that the vitality of downtown is critical to the future success of the city as a whole. • In late spring of 1993 streetscaping began to come to Laurens Street, a little at a time. With a plan in development for two years, the city began planting trees, marking parking spaces with brick pavers and more, but in small sections to create minimal disruption of businesses. • In a mid-1993 speech announcing the coming improvements, Cullum said that, “Arts and Culture are the new anchors for downtown.” • In 1994 City Council created a Tax Increment District (TIF) downtown and borrowed $1.5 million to pay for infrastructure that would spur economic growth by borrowing from that future growth. For 15 years increased taxes generated by the increased value of properties, and any new construction, went to pay back the TIF. That simple idea made so much possible.

Barren and empty, downtown Aiken was dying two decades ago.

“The downtown is the heart of Aiken. Unless you have a strong heart, the rest of the community will be in poor health.” - Aiken City Manager Roger LeDuc

Todd Lista Photo, taken November 11, 2008

And We Aren’t Done Yet T he vision of a morebeautiful and prosperous city flourishes as improvements and additions to the quality of life in downtown Aiken continue. The Aiken Corporation and the city currently supports the establishment of the Center for African American History, Art and Culture and the rebuilding of Aiken’s passenger railroad depot. A festive groundbreaking for the depot project was held in September 2008, and the depot should open to the public in 2010, about the same time that the cultural center expects to be ready. New Wayfinding kiosks downtown, with maps and directions for visitors, is another outgrowth of city and ADDA teamwork, as is a highly successful new parking plan that has opened up scores of spaces in front of stores during business hours. New façade restoration grants are available and, after a long process, design guidelines are now in place for

new construction downtown. Further downtown streetscaping will branch out to the eastern and northern sections of the city in the near future. The arbor theme in Bee Lane and the Newberry Street Festival Site are to be continued to and across Richland Avenue. Through the ongoing partnership of the City of Aiken, the Aiken Corporation, the Aiken Housing Authority, the CDIC, Second Baptist Church and Habitat for Humanity, Northside and downtown housing revitalization continues its remarkable success – but that’s another story. “Each one of these advances is a separate story,” says former Chamber President June Murff. “But they are all little victories in an ongoing process.” Says Cunningham of the twenty years of progress, “Whatever your ideology, you have to understand what will work. It would be nice if private money could have done everything, but it wouldn’t have

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ADDA photo

happened without the public private partnerships. A lot of people had their hearts in the right place. Honest, strong, levelheaded people contributed their time, money and effort in this city.” All of this progress is important to everyone in Aiken and the surrounding area, says LeDuc. “The downtown is the heart of Aiken. Unless you have a strong heart, the rest of the community will be in poor health.” In September Mayor Cavanaugh agreed saying; “Having just finished my term as President of the Municipal Association of South Carolina, I had the opportunity to see other towns and cities and many of those are not growing. We are fortunate to have great citizens who work together to improve our quality of life. We have come a long way and together we will work to improve the character and charm of our Aiken.”