Downtown Rock Hill development eyes apartments, parking deck, new business

New apartments, a parking deck and perhaps townhomes or businesses could be coming to one of the last downtown Rock Hill spots able to handle them all.

Rock Hill City Council gave preliminary approval Monday night to a property sale at Dave Lyle Boulevard, Main and White streets. The city owns three acres there.

Lanford Associates proposed buying the property for $503,000, though that price is far from firm.

“The contract is really, basically, a hold position so that the developer or development company can go to a bank, line up its finances and do the due diligence that needs to be done so that we can get to the real negotiation,” said Mayor John Gettys.

About half the property would be developed first at Dave Lyle and Main.

“These four parcels mainly would be set aside for the corner of Main and Dave Lyle, would be the first thing developed, and that would involve multi-family apartments that would go there, about 150 units,” said David Vehaun, city manager.

A preliminary sketch shows a five-story apartment building there.

Specific details would come only through a development agreement with the city, as would details on what would come along White Street, where possibilities include retail, office, townhomes or more apartments.

“It’s really still to work out how those would be developed,” Vehaun said.

Phased in construction on a parking deck interior to the city block is part of the discussion.

“Along with this, we would need to begin thinking about structured parking along the interior of this block,” Vehaun said.

The council voted 5-2 to more forward with the agreement.

Councilman Kevin Sutton said he had too many concerns to cast a vote in favor.

“How do the seven of us make a decision about how much we sell a piece of property for when none of us are in the real estate business and we don’t have a professional opinion to go on?” Sutton said.

The developer came in with a price, without an appraisal. The developer wants to pay a per unit price, similar to what happened when The Anderson apartments came just a block down the street.

“This is all based on what’s happened right across the street,” Gettys said.

Sutton isn’t sure he wants to see a multi-story apartment building on Dave Lyle and Main. If one is coming, he said he wouldn’t want to use the same per unit price past projects used, figuring the area is growing in value.

“Eventually we should look to make more money,” Sutton said. “This is the last piece of property, if you look kind of in this area right around our Main Street.”

Councilwoman Kathy Pender said she is fine letting details come together with the project.

“This is the first step in a somewhat lengthy, several months at least, process in just getting this started,” she said.

She likes the idea of further downtown development.

“I appreciate this as a good step to possible additional development downtown, I think which is what we all want at this point and time,” Pender said.

Paul Dillingham, city attorney, said there isn’t enough information yet to have a firm price on the property.

“Because of the unique situation with the property, where we don’t know what the environmental issues are, we don’t know what the ultimate use will be on those other tracts, there are provisions that the price would be negotiated in good faith depending on what those conditions reveal,” he said.

The $503,00 “almost is a placeholder at this point,” he said.

The Anderson property also faced questions about environmental issues leading to costs worked out through a development agreement.

On the opposite side, the former Good Motor Company site has similar issues. In March, York County and the Rock Hill Economic Development Corporation came together on a 4.4-acre site at Dave Lyle, White and Oakland Avenue.

The economic group took ownership from the county long enough for state laws allowing new owners to do environmental assessments without liability to kick in, with the idea of selling it to a willing developer. The Good location is a brownfield site, meaning it has or is likely to have some sort of environmental problems in need of addressing.

While details remain to be figured out for the Dave Lyle and Main site, the city expects work to figure them out fast.

“They’re anxious to get moving,” Vehaun said. “I expect you’ll see work out there as far as doing site evaluation, those kinds of things, pretty quickly.”

This story was originally published December 12, 2018 at 8:42 AM.