Construction on two large projects on the Aiken Technical College campus should be nearing completion in the next few months.
Aiken Tech officials broke ground on the college’s new nursing education center in May 2025 and it’s on track for a spring 2027 ribbon cutting while the Aiken County Career and Technology Center should be finished by year’s end with students attending classes there in January 2027.
“I think we’re making some really good progress with the construction. We see a lot of framework going up, the interior frames for the walls; the HVAC going in.
Hopefully, we’re on target for substantial completion by the end of the calendar year,” said Forest Mahan, Aiken Tech president about the nursing building.
The new 30,000-square-foot nursing education center will include skills and simulation labs, space for auditorium-style seating and additional faculty office space to train students with the goal of helping to alleviate the current nursing shortage
Aiken Tech offers several nursing programs including LPN and ADN.
Once the facility is completed, students won’t move in right away. Full capacity for students in the new building is expected in fall 2027.
“We’ll have time in the spring to get everything with the new technology uploaded and get everything developed. That will allow us to transition people into the building and become familiar with the different technologies that will be available,” he said.
Simulation labs will be an integral part of this new center.
“This gives nursing students a lot more access to hands-on training,” he said.
Books and clinical rotations will still be part of the curriculum but by using computerized patients, students can encounter real world situations and assess their responses. Sim instructors will tailor situations the students are likely to encounter such as a cardiac arrest or other unexpected patient reactions.
“They can have it all through this high-tech experience and then if they have a mistake or need to learn a skill better, they can go back and do a replay. They can go back and say ‘this is what I should’ve done differently,” he said. “And they can learn to build those skills. We want to make sure this nursing program in this new building is much more hands on and mush more scenario driven.”
On another portion of the campus is the Aiken County Career and Technology Center. The college and Aiken County Public School District signed a memorandum of understanding in June 2023 for the 100,000 square-foot center which will train more than 500 Aiken County high school students when fully operational.
The current center, which is almost directly across the street from Aiken Tech, was constructed in 1967 and is about half the size of the new building. To make way for the new site on campus, Aiken Tech Buildings 400, 500 and 600 were demolished in 2023.
“We’re scheduled to be finished in late fall with students and employees arriving on Jan. 5, 2027,” said Tim Yarborough the district’s Chief Officer of Operations and Student Services.
The center currently offers 17 programs such as welding, automotive technology, sports medicine, cosmetology and child development to students primarily in the 11th and 12th grades. One hundred additional students are expected to be enrolled this year over last, bringing the number to 467.
Having the career center on the Aiken Technical College campus makes sense, Yarbrough said.
“We’ve always had a wonderful relationship with Aiken Tech,” he said. “We’ve worked closely with them for years. Some of our students attend early college there. They take classes at Aiken Tech…It’s a natural marriage providing a pathway from high school to technical college.”
The center will expand to 22 programs in the new building.
Yarbrough said the school district keeps in contact with industry leaders to anticipate the needs for skills for people joining the workforce.
Major fuunding for both projects came through the Savannah River Site plutonium settlement of 2020. The $600 million settlement, which is the largest legal settlement in the state’s history, was announced on Aug. 31, 2020, ending six years of litigation over the removal of 9.5 metric tons of plutonium that had been stored at SRS, according to Associated Press reports of the time.
The career and technology center received $30 million for the project which costs around $56 million. Aiken Tech also received more than $11 million for the nursing center.
Mahan said other improvements are also being made on campus.
“Those (nursing building and career center) are the biggest projects. We plan to demo a few buildings and create a green space. We have ongoing projects such as new HVAC, new roofs. We’re keeping pace with renovations,” he said.
Upgrades to Building A were recently completed.
The admin building was updated to bring services such as the Enrollment Services Center, Business Office, Human Resources, Marketing and Communications, Information Technology, and the ATC Foundation all under one roof.
“Once we’re done with construction, we’ll have a modern looking, sleeker looking college that we hope will attract people of all ages,” said Mahan. “We know where the 18 year-olds are, but we need to engage with the adult learners who may be in the workforce but need a new career path.”
Registration for the fall semester is currently underway with classes set to begin Aug. 17.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years. She’s won multiple Georgia Press Association awards, is the recipient of the 2018 Greater Augusta Arts Council’s media award and was named best local writer by readers of Augusta Magazine in 2024 and 2025. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
