🏨Oliver Hospitality breaks ground on Hotel Aiken, with an opening set by March 1, 2028, at the latest

If you've walked past the empty Hotel Aiken building for years, this one is finally moving. Oliver Hospitality broke ground Oct. 26 on the Gilded Age hotel, which has sat empty for over a decade. Managing partner Ethan Orley and Craig Bradford, senior vice president for development, rode in on horseback down Bee Lane, and the Post and Courier reported more than 100 people in the audience.

“Today marks the moment that Hotel Aiken moves from conversations, council meetings, votes, planning and drawings into reality.”

Orley told the Aiken Rotary Club that the hotel will open by March 1, 2028, at the latest. Mayor Teddy Milner thanked the pair for "their unwavering commitment to this project from the very beginning." Orley said tax credits made it work: "This is a major tax credit deal. It doesn't work out without public incentive dollars, real public commitment."

• Company: Nashville-based Oliver Hospitality
• Annex: three stories, topped by a fourth-floor rooftop bar
• Ballroom: seats 150
• Financing: state and federal tax credits for historic and abandoned buildings