Tom Young Center in Aiken financed with $20 million appropriation, city says facility under budget

Aiken City Manager Stuart Beenbo said the Tom Young Center for Research and Innovation was constructed with state funding from the plutonium settlement fund and that $20 million was appropriated for the building. He said the project is under budget and described the center as an asset for downtown.

Beenbo named expected occupants of the center as USC Aiken, Aiken Corporation and representatives of the Savannah River National Laboratory and described the first-floor public area as suitable for banquets, poster sessions and technical lectures.

Addressing earlier concerns about parking, Beenbo said the facility has a 40-space lot, the city expects about 100 employees to work there, and that there are 33 spaces on the southbound block of Newberry Street and roughly 90 additional spaces near the old public safety building about a block and a half away.

Beenbo said the center will benefit downtown merchants and restaurants and called the facility "game-changing."