The Complex isn’t going anywhere. How four partners agreed to keep a Fort Mill icon.

True to its word, Leroy Springs & Co. won’t run the Anne Springs Close Greenway Recreation Complex beyond 2020.

The town of Fort Mill and Fort Mill school district will be running it by then.

In an agreement between the company, town, school district and Upper Palmetto YMCA, the Complex facility will remain open. A new 50-meter competition pool will be added to existing pool facilities. Fitness areas, gym space, childcare and other current Complex features will be offered or expanded.

The town and school district will assume ownership of property donated by Leroy Springs, valued at more than $10.3 million, as early as next June. The aquatics center addition should open in the fall of 2019.

“I can’t believe this actually got done,” said Anne Springs Close.

Close’s family and the family’s business have supported recreation programs in town for 75 years, including at the Complex.

“To have four entities that have established, proud, successful entities get together and pull this off is just sort of a miracle,” she said.

Tim Patterson, president of LSC, said the deal needed each partner.

“The town, school district and YMCA all bring complementary experience and resources to the table, and their cooperation has made the donation of this facility possible,” he said.

In the agreement, the school district will use money from a successful 2015 bond referendum — it included $9.9 million in financing voters approved for an aquatics center — to expand the pool facilities. The town will continue recreation and adult programs, expanding the gym and renovating tennis courts. The YMCA will manage the site, similar to existing partnerships it has with sites in the Rock Hill and Clover school districts.

The involved property doesn’t include land to the right of the main Complex entrance, where baseball fields are now. Leroy Springs will keep it, and doesn’t currently have development plans for it. The land is zoned to allow commercial or mixed use development. New ballfields are planned by the town as part of a new park within the Waterside at the Catawba subdivision just a few miles down Fort Mill Parkway.

The town had looked at putting a recreation center and fields at the new park if a deal couldn’t be reached on the Complex. With the deal, gym space can be maximized there and field space expanded at Waterside.

The move also allows LSC to devote more of its attention to the 2,100-acre Anne Springs Close Greenway, which will keep its trailhead at the Complex open, as part of a continued emphasis on recreational opportunities dating back three-quarters of a century.

“Over the last 40 years, many of those opportunities have taken place right here at the Complex,” Patterson said. “People have learned how to dance, play ball and swim on this property.”

The site, he said, has developed into a “community of friends” and his company is glad to see willing partners keep it going.

“It’s truly generations that have enjoyed this facility, and generations will continue to enjoy it,” Patterson said.

Although LSC has been saying for several years the move away from running the Complex was made for financial reasons based in part on the investment needed to upgrade the aging facility, YMCA CEO Moe Bell said his group is excited at its opportunity.

“This is not a broken down building or a dysfunctional staff, or a dysfunctional program,” Bell said about the 40 year-old facility. “There are many wonderful things that are going on, and we plan to continue those.”

Membership costs might change.

It isn’t clear yet if memberships could be combined with Greenway memberships, as they are now. But Complex members will have access to more total sites. The YMCA used to have a setup in which members got a certain number of free trips to other YMCA locations outside their area. The group is moving toward a nationwide exchange allowing members at any site to use any other.

Local YMCA sites include Baxter Village, Tega Cay, the main branch in Rock Hill, and an aquatics center in Lake Wylie.

“A member here will be a member everywhere,” Bell said.

Three swim teams

For the school district, the new partnership adds space for what soon will be three high school swim teams. Plus, swim lessons and other programs envisioned when the district put an aquatics center into its 2015 bond vote.

“This new combined facility will host district, regional and state swim competitions as well as offer swim safety classes, water aerobics and other programs to benefit the community,” said Chuck Epps, district superintendent.

Fort Mill Mayor Guynn Savage said the partnership will continue the legacy of the Close family, Leroy Springs & Co. and Springs industries and their contributions to the health and well-being of the community. There was a time when the town, which has doubled in physical size and population over the past decade, was largely dependent on the Springs family and Springs entities, including its former textile business, for employment, housing and recreation.

“We’re connected,” Savage said. “We’re absolutely connected at this location and others. We have found that our hearts link well with one another.”

Savage said she was one of the first employees at the Complex, so the latest announcement is particularly special to her.

“I stood here with Ms. Close at the groundbreaking,” Savage said. “It has brought an enormous sense of joy and health to our community, and I’m thrilled that it will continue to do so.”

The pair stood together again Tuesday morning. Close said other communities could benefit from seeing the type of planning Fort Mill is doing, gathering respected groups together to make a difference.

“It’s a sign of hope for the future,” she said.

On a morning full of sports-themed references — diving in together, hitting one out of the park, slam dunk decision — plenty of talk centered on a “win-win-win-win” move for all the partners involved.

“The biggest winners are the citizens of Fort Mill,” Close said, “who (now) know that this is going to continue.”

This story was originally published October 31, 2017 at 1:47 PM with the headline "The Complex isn’t going anywhere. How four partners agreed to keep a Fort Mill icon.."