The Carolina Panthers are one step closer to putting their Rock Hill plans into motion, with property tied to the team now under contract for sale, according to multiple sources confirmed to The Herald.
Rock Hill Mayor John Gettys said Thursday afternoon he does not know of a finalized deal yet, though he said a closing could still happen by early fall or by the end of the year.
“The property where they hope to build their development is under contract,” Gettys told The Herald. “It hasn’t closed yet to my knowledge.”
That contrasts with a Thursday afternoon report from the Charlotte Business Journal, which said the land deal was complete and cited Gov. Henry McMaster. McMaster was speaking to media at the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance annual retreat in Asheville, N.C.
A spokesperson for McMaster’s office later told The Herald that the office was deferring to the Panthers for any update on the deal’s status. Attempts to reach the team Thursday did not produce a response.
The land at the center of the move has been discussed for a long time. It sits off I-77 between the Cherry Road and Dave Lyle Boulevard exits and covers more than 200 acres. One parcel measures 207 acres, and six smaller adjacent properties owned by the same family push the total past 280 acres.
County records list the largest parcel at more than $1.3 million in market value, while the combined properties are valued at almost $2.5 million.
The team released a rendering in April showing the facility site extending south from Eden Terrace to the rail bridge over the interstate. That drawing also showed a new I-77 exit roughly in the middle of the project, with ramps for both northbound and southbound traffic.
York County property records available Thursday afternoon showed sales through Sept. 10, and none included the more than 200-acre tract. According to the assessor’s office, the property has not changed hands since 1998, when it was part of a series of title changes within the Hutchison family.
At the retreat in Asheville, the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance posted multiple tweets about McMaster’s comments on the Panthers. Those posts focused on regional cooperation and the idea of light rail between Charlotte and Rock Hill, but did not address the land deal itself.
"The @Panthers are one of best examples of regional cooperation as is the idea of Light rail from Charlotte to Rock Hill. If we can accomplish that and hook into the blue and red lines, that could be an example of what we can do all over both of our states."
The progress on the property comes after months of public movement around the project. In June, McMaster and Panthers owner David Tepper joined city and state leaders in Rock Hill for a pep rally tied to the planned facility move. Tepper said the team intended to bring a world-class medical facility to Rock Hill along with team facilities, and McMaster signed a tax bill providing $115 million in incentives for the relocation of the team headquarters to South Carolina.
Talk of the Panthers landing in Rock Hill goes back at least to November 2018, when team radio broadcaster Mick Mixon spoke at a York County Regional Chamber of Commerce event downtown. He mentioned “a state-of-the-art practice facility with restaurants, shopping, banking, condos, apartments” among a long list of possibilities.
Local leaders have spent months preparing for what could come next. York County’s top tourism official Billy Dunlap visited Frisco, Texas, to see the economic impact of the Dallas Cowboys facility there, and both he and Gettys have said a Panthers practice site could bring a level of development Rock Hill has not seen before.
If the deal is finalized, the next step could be annexation into the city. The property is currently in unincorporated York County, and if the owner requests annexation, Rock Hill would have to decide whether to approve it. City leaders say they support bringing the Panthers property into the city if the opportunity comes.
The Panthers have long had ties to South Carolina, spending training camp and playing games in their inaugural season there, though their headquarters have been in Charlotte for more than two decades. Training camp remains in Spartanburg, and a move to Rock Hill would not affect where the team plays its games.
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