Rock Hill is moving toward sale of downtown Gettys Center. To whom? It’s not clear
The city of Rock Hill is moving forward with selling the Gettys Center, but key details about the deal — including who the buyer is — remain unclear.
The Rock Hill City Council on March 9 approved the first reading of an ordinance authorizing the sale of the city-owned Gettys Center at 201 E. Main St., a step that signals the city is moving forward with a contract to sell the property. But city officials have not publicly identified the buyer or released the contract, saying negotiations are still ongoing and leaving artists who work in the building uncertain about their future
“The whole process has not been transparent,” said Dylan Bannister, a visual artist who maintains a studio in the downtown building. “Because we are not direct tenants of the city… it does not appear that they feel the need to be transparent with us, with the arts community.”
The Gettys Center has long served as a hub for Rock Hill’s arts community, housing studio artists, music performances and other events in the historic downtown building. The city owns the building but leases it to the Arts Council of York County, which manages the artists and programming inside. City leaders previously said maintaining the property has become a financial burden and selling the building is the best option.
But for artists who rent studio space in the building, the lack of details has made it difficult to understand what comes next. Many are currently operating under month-to-month leases while the city works toward a sale.
“It sounds so defeatist, but speaking for myself, I think it is a foregone conclusion that the building will be sold, most likely it will be sold this year… despite our insistence that it will really negatively impact the arts and cultural community in Rock Hill,” Bannister said.
Gettys Center sale details
And the path toward a sale is unfolding in an unusual way, with potential buyers surfacing during City Council meetings to ask that their offers be considered.
During the March 9 meeting, as council discussed the sale ordinance, a man stood up and said he had been trying to submit an offer for the building for about a month. Rob Settle, president of real estate firm Commercial Carolina, told council he represented a client interested in purchasing the property and asked how he could get the city to review the bid.
For Bannister and other artists watching the meeting, the moment felt familiar.
“It was sort of like deja vu,” he said.
A nearly identical scene played out earlier this year.
In January, the council planned to take a vote to finalize the sale of the building to an initial buyer, a hospitality group previously identified by artists as Collected Hospitality Group. But during that meeting, local developer Warren Norman said his company submitted a competing bid that was $80,000 higher than the offer council was considering. Norman also said his proposal included provisions aimed at helping relocate artists who currently use the building.
Council members said at the time they had not heard of that offer and voted to delay the sale to review it.
The ordinance that came before council this month restarted the process with a new first reading. When asked if the council restarted the voting process because it had a new contract, city spokesperson Katie Quinn told The Charlotte Observer it was procedural. New council members were sworn in earlier this year following local elections, requiring the ordinance process to begin again.
Quinn said the city listed the Gettys Center for sale in early 2025 and reviewed offers through that process. When asked about the offer mentioned at Monday’s meeting, Quinn said it appeared to have been submitted outside the regular sales process and after negotiations on a potential contract were already underway.
Quinn declined to discuss details of the ongoing negotiations, citing exemptions under South Carolina’s Freedom of Information Act that allow governments to withhold certain information related to real estate deals.
“We expect the proposed buyer to be made public at second reading due to ongoing contractual negotiations,” Quinn said.
Rock Hill artist uncertainty
Uncertainty for artists at the Gettys Center did not begin with the latest vote.
Last year, the city initially told the Arts Council of York County to vacate the building by the end of August as it pursued a sale, before later reversing course and allowing artists to remain under month-to-month leases while the property stayed on the market. While the initial hospitality group expected to buy the building offered no public plan for the artists, Norman’s competing bid proposed relocating them to space at the Rock Hill Galleria.
Norman and Robert Settle did not respond to requests for comment. Collected Hospitality Group, the group previously slated to buy the building, owns restaurants across the Southeast including CO in Charlotte. Collected’s marketing director Mary Pappas said in an email to the Observer she could not provide any details but that they are “in talks,” about the building and could answer further questions “if we do in fact move forward with the purchase.”
Until then, artists inside the building say they are left waiting.
Bannister said the Gettys Center has long served as a gathering place for a wide range of creative activity in Rock Hill, from studio artists to musicians performing in the building’s courtroom space. Those events, he said, helped bring people into the city’s arts community.
“There’s not really another space like that here,” Bannister said.
For now, artists say they plan to keep working and hosting events in the building while they can. Bannister said the arts council is planning an “artist yard sale” April 11 that will use all three floors of the building and invite the public to see the studios and purchase artwork and supplies.
“It is an opportunity for us to connect with the community so that they can come in and see what we have going on,” Bannister said. “(The building) is still being used while we have it.”
This story was originally published March 16, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
