Fort Mill just bought 50 acres off I-77 for nearly $8M. Here’s the plan for it
Fort Mill bought a large, vacant property of Interstate 77 that could become a recreational hub for the town. It’s too soon, however, to know exactly what it’ll add.
“Land in Fort Mill, it is not getting any easier to find,” said Mayor Guynn Savage in an interview Tuesday with The Herald. “We felt the need to act on this one.”
The town bought the more than 50-acre site Feb. 5 for $7.8 million, county land records show. The property had belonged to North Carolina not-for-profit hospital network Novant Health for two decades.
The site is on the east side of the interstate, just north of the Sutton Road interchange between the interstate and U.S. 21 Bypass. Nearby properties include the Traditions at Fort Mill senior apartments, a small retail center and a Piedmont Urgent Care.
The purchase follows a year of recreation site and trail master plans that identified a need for more field or open spaces.
Rather than wait for a dire need, the town opted to buy and bank the property for future use. It’ll take time to figure out what will go on the new site.
Groundbreaking isn’t expected for more than a year, Savage said.
“What we did was make a strategic purchase of land where, if we had let it go, it might have turned into something else and we would have lost the opportunity,” she said.
The property will be paid for through a mix of municipal funding options, the mayor said. More land purchases could follow.
At the height of the town’s growth phase, developers asking to build hundreds or thousands of homes might donate land for a park. That’s how the town got Banks Athletic Park at Waterside at the Catawba, and 60 acres on the Catawba River near Elizabeth.
“We have been saying no a lot in the recent past to a lot of development,” Savage said. “Land banking is something you should expect out of us, because I really don’t see us saying yes as often as we have in the past.”
The sale happened three weeks after the town bought 7 acres beside Doby Bridge Park from the developers of Catawba Ridge Market. The town paid $500,000 for that property on Jan. 15, with plans to expand the park.
Fort Mill land sale happens amid hospital changes
The most recent property sale also answers the question of what Novant Health might do with the property, at a time when more hospitals and medical facilities are being built.
The sale comes amid significant healthcare changes across York County, and particularly in Fort Mill.
Last spring, Charlotte-based nonprofit hospital system Atrium Health bought the longtime community rescue squad Fort Mill EMS to start running its ambulance service. In December, Atrium laid out $450 million plans to build a Fort Mill hospital.
Piedmont Medical Center runs the only two hospitals in York County today, including Piedmont Medical Center-Fort Mill that opened four years ago. Piedmont took over River Hills/Lake Wylie EMS, the other main York County volunteer unit for decades along with Fort Mill EMS, on Feb. 2.
The Medical University of South Carolina has a hospital under construction in Indian Land, and other medical facilities are planned by various providers. Piedmont has a freestanding emergency room under construction in Indian Land.
Now that the town owns the acreage off the interstate, leaders will rely heavily on the recent parks at trail master plans as their form of public input on what should go on the site.