Knowledge Park, Rock Hill leaders to study streetcar alternatives

Leaders of Rock Hill’s effort to develop the former Bleachery site say they will consider options other than streetcars for transporting potential customers, employees and others to the property, located between downtown and Winthrop University.

City officials and local business people want to develop the site as a mixture of retail shops, restaurants and high-tech firms. Some have proposed developing a streetcar system in an effort to transport people to the project, known as Knowledge Park.

But the streetcar proposal has been controversial because of its potential cost, which some have said could be up to $20 million to develop and $1 million annually for operation. The Rock Hill school board threatened to not sign off on plans for a special tax district in the Knowledge Park area if some of the district’s potential tax dollars were spent on a streetcar system.

The district later dropped that stipulation.

The Knowledge Park Leadership Group has been asked to determine what transit options may exist for the project. The group, working with Winthrop University and the city, is expected to make a recommendation to City Council by the end of the year.

One of the options the group will study is what the Knowledge Park would look like without a transit option, said Stephen Turner, executive director of the city’s Economic Development department.

City officials and business leaders say the makeup of Knowledge Park will depend on whether transportation exists from it to Winthrop and downtown. Without a dedicated transportation link, retail and restaurant growth at the site is unlikely, they say.

Retail shops and restaurants are part of the vision that the development team of Sora-Phelps presented to the city last March to transform the area into a place where people can live, work and play. The Knowledge Park concept calls for those businesses as well as high-tech firms.

Sora-Phelps, a partnership between Sora Development of Towson, Md., and Phelps Development of Greeley, Colo., envisions 19 buildings at the site, with 1.3 million square feet of retail, restaurant, office and residential space that would create more than 1,000 jobs.

“Without the linkage, we would have to modify a lot of our plans,” said Andy Shene of the Knowledge Park Leadership Group. The leadership group includes between 15 to 20 Rock Hill business people who advocate for the Knowledge Park as a way to redevelop the Bleachery and create jobs.

Shene is a regional president at First Citizens Bank and chairman of the leadership group.

Officials with Sora Development did not return phone calls Friday.

The transportation options could mean a streetcar, electric buses, bike lanes, even pedestrian walkways, Turner said.

Without a connection between Winthrop and downtown, the area will have “pockets of economic progress” combined with blighted areas, Turner said. “We have to do something different.”

The Bleachery is located away from the city’s traffic patterns. The goal, however, is to create a dense mixed-use environment that drives more housing.

“You have to create a catalyst, a special reason to be at that site,” Turner said. “The developers are telling us you have to create that opportunity,” and a transportation link will do that, he said.

A transportation link, said Mayor Doug Echols, is “the thread. It’s vital. The question is what’s the best way to make it happen.”

In evaluating transit alternatives, the city and the Knowledge Park Leadership Group said Winthrop University must be an active partner in the discussions.

Shene said the Winthrop officials have been largely absent from discussions recently as they focus on their own leadership changes. The school, which has been without a president since June, choose a new one on Friday. Shene said he expects the university to be 100 percent behind the Knowledge Park.

The leadership group may present its case to the university’s Board of Trustees at an April retreat.

The city has already starting evaluating options, including a visit with Proterra of Greenville, which makes electric buses. Proterra has suggested the Leadership Group visit Louisville or Nashville to see how its buses can meet Rock Hill’s economic development needs.

The leadership group may also visit Little Rock, Ark., and Tucson, Ariz., where a transit system linked the University of Arizona to downtown.

Rock Hill has also hired HDR Inc., an engineering consulting firm that did an initial streetcar study for the city in 2008, to assist the leadership group.

Sora-Phelps will also be part of the transit alternative discussion, Turner said.

If the leadership group stays on a proposed schedule, it should finish its study and make its recommendations to City Council by November.

This story was originally published March 13, 2015 at 1:12 PM with the headline "Knowledge Park, Rock Hill leaders to study streetcar alternatives."