Collision of priorities: Could one York County mega development cost jobs at another?
Public officials say one York County mega development won’t move forward at the expense of another, but it’s a message they’ll have to push hard in 2020.
As work continues to prepare Rock Hill for the Carolina Panthers headquarters site by mid-2022, there’s an unsettled sense coming from Fort Mill. Kingsley is one of the few economic development engine areas that can claim an impact in the same ballpark as the Panthers site.
Some vocal businesses in Kingsley see interstate improvements coming to the Panthers site and wonder when theirs -- at S.C. 160 -- are coming. The I-77 interchange at S.C. 160 has for some time been the top road congestion priority, according to the Rock Hill-Fort Mill Area Transportation Study.
“There are some who look at this process from the outside in and just say ‘you know here’s an existing priority (at Kingsley), here’s a highly visible project that involves an interchange (for the Panthers),” said RFATS director David Hooper. “It seems like it’s kind of getting the fast track. Don’t forget about us over here’.”
Fort Mill Mayor Guynn Savage called Hooper’s depiction “very gentle compared to comments” she receives from Kingsley businesses.
“The perception is clear,” Savage said. “They feel jeopardized. Not that (the Panthers work) shouldn’t occur, but they feel jeopardized.”
Traffic in and around Kingsley is getting to the point that it could cost both existing and potential businesses.
“These folks are frustrated and they want resolution,” Savage said.
Driving their decisions
Hooper and South Carolina Department of Transportation officials met Nov. 22 with Kingsley businesses to talk traffic. Hours later, Hooper and those officials met with the RFATS policy committee where the group amended its 2045 long-range plan to reflect the new Rock Hill interchange that will accommodate the Panthers site, planned between the existing Cherry Road and Dave Lyle Boulevard exits.
“In effect today what we’ve done is we’ve taken care of the procedural side of things,” Hooper said.
The decision didn’t involve how the Panthers interchange would secure funding. State commerce leaders in Columbia are working on a funding package, transportation officials at the meeting said, but details weren’t available. Hooper said he might know more by the end of the year.
If the likely eight-figure funding comes available and work begins, Hooper said it would be important to convey the project won’t displace, slow or impair the Kingsley area project.
“That would be an important variable to make sure that that is covered when the outreach takes place in early January,” he said.
Berry Mattox, area project leader for SCDOT, said the impression a Panthers interchange might get all the attention could grow. Much of it relates to scale and variables at the Panthers site compared to Kingsley.
“If that project ends up going faster than ours, there’s a reason for that,” Mattox said.
The Panthers site would have fewer landowners in need of right-of-way acquisition. The interchange there isn’t as complicated as at S.C. 160, where several options include possible flyover bridges and traffic diversions.
“The relative complexity of the (Panthers) interchange here is a much simpler project,” Mattox said. “The right-of-way acquisition is very little. Your property is there.”
Savage argues, the Kingsley area interchange has been a stated top priority for years while the Panthers project wasn’t known this time last year.
Hooper and Savage say major employers at Kingsley are making decisions based at least in part on traffic, that could have significant consequences for business in York County.
“What started out as ‘it’s inconvenient that our employees can’t get to work on time’, then ‘we can’t go out to lunch’, has migrated over a period of time now to ‘we can’t further expand because we can’t get employees in and out,’” Savage said. “That’s a bit of a different perception-driven decision for those of us that are eager to expand job opportunities in our community.”
Kingsley has big businesses like LPL Financial, The Lash Group and Domtar. It also has major undeveloped land that’s part of the master plan. Savage said traffic could impact more than just expansion.
“Their perceptions — as are given to me on a regular basis — are driving their decisions on whether or not they expand,” she said. “There are expansion opportunities for two of those businesses that are being pushed out into the future and they’re considering other opportunities. That’s what they’re bringing to us.”
Not the first time
There’s irony in the traffic discussion, in that Kingsley has been on both ends of it.
“This is not the first time this has happened,” Hooper said. “There are some who might make that argument for the Celanese corridor and the Celanese interchange and how we elevated — and rightly so — the 160 interchange with the development of Kingsley.”
Traffic at exit 82 on I-77 was such a concern there was contentious talk of adding another bridge across the Catawba River. Rock Hill leaders largely favored it to relieve congestion at Celanese. Fort Mill leaders largely disapproved, fearing it would pour traffic onto Sutton Road. Interchange work at exit 82 is still waiting alongside further improvements at S.C. 160.
S.C. 160 rose to the priority list top spot despite congestion figures that would point to Celanese, largely due to what Kingsley brings the area.
“There are developments, there are times, when it’s something of sufficient size or complexity where you’ve got to act,” Hooper said. “It almost is irresponsible not to act, when it is that big.”
The issue now, though, is what to do when mega development priorities collide. The Panthers site could bring up 50,000 vehicle trips a day. There are possibilities from practice fields and medical space to skyscrapers, entertainment venues and hotels.
“There are developments and then there are developments,” Hooper said. “And you’ve got some developments like at Kingsley that have such an operational impact that it’s rational for us to take note of that and elevate that and make sure that we address it as promptly as we can.”
Getting both done
Leaders agree there is a perception problem, but also that both interchanges can and will happen.
“The funding from the (Panthers) interchange project is not coming from the same funding source that will fund the 160 interchange,” Hooper said. “It’ll have no impact from a funding standpoint.”
Nor, he said, should workload be an issue since RFATS isn’t the main agency responsible for the Panthers project.
“It’s not going to compete,” Hooper said.
Yet another concern from businesses involves the proximity of the projects. Whether federal and other approval bodies might look favorably on two major projects so close together. Hooper said evaluating interchanges means looking within two miles. Two miles from the Panthers site only takes the study area to Sutton Road, not S.C. 160 (three miles farther north).
“If you were a little closer together I think that might be more of a concern,” Hooper said.
Another reason for optimism in the Kingsley area involves the state infrastructure bank (SIB).
This fall York County re-submitted a request to the state body that lends money for major road projects. This time at more than $125 million, the application includes interchange improvements at S.C. 160, Celanese/Cherry and Carowinds Boulevard.
The infrastructure bank could have an answer as early as January.
S.C. Rep. Gary Simrill, who represents Rock Hill and sits on the RFATS policy committee, said there have been three recent lawsuits against the infrastructure bank but the state won two and the other was dismissed. Even with two under appeal, the bank is ready to start distributing money. A prior hold on funding means the bank now has lending capacity at about $729 million.
“I feel very comfortable as we start looking at what the SIB has on its plate beginning in January of 2020, the ability for that to start rolling.”
Simrill hears concern that moving fast on the Panthers interchange might upset others. Yet the critical issue isn’t how fast the Panthers project happens, he said, but in whether it supplants any other project as a priority.
“Clearly it’s not the case at all,” Simrill said.
Simrill said he is optimistic the York County application to the infrastructure bank will have a case, particularly in economic impact. In that application he sees S.C. 160 at the head of the list.
“From a funding standpoint, the Fort Mill needs and the Rock Hill need at exit 82 (Celanese and Cherry roads) would be first off, based on that model,” Simrill said.
In past infrastructure bank setups, decisions could be made independently of SCDOT listed priorities.
“Today it doesn’t work like that,” Simrill said.
Economic impact of improvements in a given area is one of many criteria used to make decisions, and one the York County projects appear to fit.
“The politics has been removed to the best extent it can, and policy and priority have replaced (it),” Simrill said.
There’s more to do with road work than just deal with public perception. Yet if those perceptions stall job growth or otherwise harm the area’s ability to attract business, leaders say it has to be addressed.
“I got the sense there’s some real passion there,” Hooper said. “There’s some frustration there.”
One difficulty in managing massive employment drivers is road planners may not know about them with much time to react. As with the Panthers site, municipal and project leaders often hold cards close to the vest, Hooper said, and then announce intentions all at once. Then road groups have to react without influence on the front end.
The result can be projects that seem to hit the ground running, while others seem to languish.
“I do understand that that perception is out there,” Hooper said. “It’s one that we’ll certainly have to address head on.”
This story was originally published November 25, 2019 at 2:24 PM.
