Housing/Construction Industry

B2B Stories

The Walls are Tumbling Down at JBA

The Augusta-Richmond County Coliseum Authority is settling into a new location for its meetings, the Grand Lobby at the newly renovated Bell Auditorium. The location gives authority members and staff a front-row seat to watch the demolition of the James Brown Arena. Well, you can see a building torn down right now. The insides don’t look like what I thought they were going to look like,” quipped Mike Harvey of Nations Group, the owner’s representative for the construction of the new JBA and concourse connecting it to the Bell. He

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Consumer Stories

Hospital Construction Passes the Halfway Point

Construction on Columbia County’s first-ever hospital is slightly ahead of schedule, despite some problems in the wake of Hurricane Helene. The ground was broken for the hospital, being built on the Gateway to Grovetown, exit 190 off Interstate 20, in April of this year. Construction crews “topped out” the hospital, that is they reached the top of the structure, in June. Construction includes a separate building providing space for medical offices beside the main hospital. It was topped off in July. “So, since the summer, we’ve really been working on

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B2B Stories

$3 million project building for the future

Construction on a project that will help young adults prepare for their future and contribute to the economy is underway on Merry Street in Augusta. Demolition has started on a building at a former Augusta park, clearing the way for a tiny homes community. It is for young people who are aging out of the foster care system with little or no ability to transition into society. Spearheading the project is Bridge Builders Communities, Inc. (BBC). Penny Wasden with First Citizens Bank is on BBC’s Board of Directors. She told

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B2B Stories

Hiring boom for construction workers

Metro Augusta will have roughly 1,300 new job openings within the next 18 to 36 months. That’s based on recent economic development announcements in Richmond and Burke Counties in Georgia and Aiken County in South Carolina. Some, including Meta in the Sage Mill Industrial Park, GF Casting Solutions in the Augusta Corporate Park, and TMC Transformers in the Burke County Industrial Park, plan to build new facilities for the approximately 500 employees the three of them will hire. “All of them have construction-related jobs,” Cal Wray, President of the Augusta

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B2B Stories

CSRA Construction Boom!

Economic development leaders in Metro Augusta are celebrating the recent series of major companies coming to the area, creating hundreds of new jobs. While those jobs have been in the spotlight, there is a quieter, even larger, job growth bubbling just under the headlines. Augusta Business Daily spoke with Cal Wray, President of the Augusta Economic Development Authority (AEDA), Will Williams, President and CEO of Western SC Economic Development Partnership, and Austin Stacy, Executive Director of the Development Authority of Burke County (DABC), about the thousands of jobs that will

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B2B Stories

Bracing for demand of skilled workers in building trades

A new program launched at Aiken Technical College, envisioned as a short-term way to address thousands of construction jobs at the Savannah River Site, could turn into a regular offering. “My expectation is that’s going to be short term for the immediate need, but that need is so great that we’ll probably be running these courses for quite some time,” Dr. Steven Simmons, Dean of the School of Technical and Continuing Education told ABD. “One of the benefits is that the state of South Carolina has allocated a lot of

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B2B Stories

New program to boost CSRA construction workforce

There are more than 400 construction worker job listings in the CSRA and a new program at Aiken Technical College (ATC) is gearing up to help fill them. The pre-apprenticeship program offered this fall will prepare students for careers in construction. The Savannah River Site and more than 15 local trade unions have partnered with Aiken Tech for this initiative. The program is being offered at no cost to South Carolina residents, thanks to state-funded grants. The program tuition for out-of-state residents is $1,000. Free tuition for South Carolina students

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Consumer Stories

Rehabilitation work continues on major project in the CSRA

While North Augusta was celebrating a new access point to the Greeneway and the announcement of a second restaurant for the Beacon Bluff project, work continues across the street on a multi-million-dollar renovation to the former Medac Building. Palmetto Peach Development is transforming the building into space for the Augusta Oncology (AO) Multispecialty Clinic. It is a partnership with Coronis Health to create a state-of-the-art cancer treatment center on Bluff Avenue, across from the North Augusta Municipal Building. “The whole place has been gutted. There are no walls in it

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Consumer Stories

Winding down the life of the James Brown Arena

Members of the Augusta-Richmond County Coliseum are taking steps to close the James Brown Arena and prepare for demolition. Members held what is expected to be their second to last monthly meeting at the arena just before the ribbon cutting to re-open the renovated and expanded Bell Auditorium. Ed Enoch, the authority’s legal counsel, updated members on the hiring of a construction manager for the $250 million project that includes a concourse to connect the new JBA to the Bell. “I got to fill out an RFP (Request For Proposal)

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Consumer Stories

All systems go for JBA staff moving day

Plans have been approved to lease space for administrative staff working at the James Brown Arena. It was one of the items approved by members of the Augusta Richmond County Coliseum Authority during their April 23 meeting. The authority will rent 3,300 square feet on the 14th floor of the Augusta University building on Broad Street at Seventh Street. The space will be used by the employees of the Oak View Group (OVG360), the management company that oversees the operations of the JBA and Bell Auditorium. “This is intended to

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