AIKEN COUNTY, S.C. (WJBF) — There’s a big change happening at Aiken Technical College, as one of its oldest buildings is being demolished.

The 500/600 building was one of the first on campus in the 1970s. “They were built at a time when there were different standards for building,” Dr. President of Aiken Technical College Forest Mahan said. “Rather than go through renovations, it’s more inexpensive to tear them down and then to create new spaces there,” he added.

Technical, manufacturing, and criminal justice classes were held there. The building was last used in 2019. “They had been completely vacated in order to move the technical programs to some new state-of-the-art buildings,” Dr. Mahan shared.

Two other older buildings are also scheduled for demolition. Building 400 will be later in April. Building 300 will be soon after. “That will open up a great deal of space that will allow that land to hopefully be used for our new partnership with the Aiken County Public School District to build their new career and technology center on our campus,” he said.

The College plans on building a Nursing Education Center soon. The space will be roughly 30,000 square feet. The exact location is still unclear. “We wanna be able to add to this space, but also to the number of students we’re able to admit. This will also open up space in our health science building, which will allow us to then expand some of our other health science programs,” he added.

The space will become the focal point of the campus. School leaders want the location to be close to the highway.

The planning phase is expected to last through 2023. The groundbreaking is scheduled for early 2024. It will take about 18 months to build it.