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Aiken, S.C., Moves Forward on New Public Safety Building

Demolishing and rebuilding the existing building could cost between $14 million and $18 million. It would also require buying more land and building vertically.

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(TNS) - Aiken City Council will use an installment purchase plan to finance a new public safety building on Beaufort Street, opting against the alternative of issuing more than $9 million in bonds.

At a special meeting Monday, council members voted 7-0 on first reading of an ordinance authorizing the funding mechanism. Second and final reading is needed for passage.

Council members also voted 7-0 against pursuing general obligation bonds for the public safety building.

“It was an either-or,” Aiken Mayor Rick Osbon said of the funding options.

The City of Aiken plans to relocate Public Safety headquarters from the 22,000-square-foot facility on Laurens Street to the former Food Lion in the 800 block of Beaufort Street, which is nearly double the size at 40,000 square feet.

Doing so will help solve the current building’s cramped quarters while also concentrating Public Safety in a higher crime area.

Demolishing and rebuilding the existing building could cost between $14 million and $18 million. It would also require buying more land and building vertically.

It will cost about $8.8 million refurbishing the Beaufort Street property.

Part of the expense will include spending $250,000 to completely rework the aging stormwater system in the area, City officials said.

“I want to reiterate what we’re doing here is innovative,” said Councilman Dick Dewar. “We’re saving a lot of money doing this and there are peripheral benefits to what we’re doing.”

The installment purchase contract would allow the City to finance the Public Safety building through annual installment payments, subject to Council approval.

Payments would draw from the City’s Transportation and Public Safety Improvement account, which is funded through a portion of the City’s electric utility franchise fees.

“Another advantage to this method of financing is that it would preserve the City’s capacity to issue General Obligation bonds should Council want to borrow in the future,” Aiken City Manager John Klimm said.

State law requires that the City form a City of Aiken Public Facilities Corporation. The corporation would issue the bonds, and the City would buy the project from the corporation on an installment basis, according to Council documents.

It’s a similar funding mechanism that the City of North Augusta used to finance elements of Riverside Village at Hammond’s Ferry, formerly known as Project Jackson.

In other business, council members also approved second reading of an ordinance authorizing the City of Aiken to enter into a purchase and sale agreement with Southeastern Real Estate Group for the purchase of property for the Public Safety building.

The measure passed 7-0, but not before concerns were raised by Councilman Philip Merry.

Merry thought there weren’t enough safeguards in the contract to protect the City should there be delays or cost overruns in the Public Safety building contract.

Alluding to the York Street bridges, which the S.C. Department of Transportation completed several months after the contract completion date, Merry called the document an “imbalanced contract.

“Im not going to amend it right here in a council meeting without first discussing it privately with our attorneys,” Merry said. “We’ve not gone through this contract very carefully. I’ve seen a lot of contracts and this one is the least balanced I’ve seen. All I want is a contract that protects us equally as well as it does them.”

Other council members, however, spoke in favor of the contract.

“There’s no such thing as a risk-free venture,” Dewar said. “You can’t predict the rainstorms, the weather issues or the delays. You just have to expect the contractor we hire is as reasonable to us as we are to them.”

In the end, Merry voted with the majority, citing Southeastern’s solid track record.

Southeastern developed The Colony Apartments and the Aiken Kroger, both on Whiskey Road. The firm is also working with the City on redevelopment of the Aiken Mall.

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©2017 the Aiken Standard (Aiken, S.C.)

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