Fort Mill Town Hall to move into Comporium building

Town Hall is on the move, and for a good bit less than what Fort Mill leaders initially thought.

Town of Fort Mill and Comporium officials announced today the town is buying two pieces of property, including buildings, the utility company owns on Tom Hall Street. Comporium will lease a small portion of one building there, and will donate half an acre to allow continued operation of the cell tower there.

The property is on 200 and 210 Tom Hall Street and officials anticipate closing on the transaction in about 90 days.

“We are pleased that this transfer of ownership would go to help local government and help the community,” said Matthew Dosch, executive vice president of customer operations and external affairs for Comporium.

“The talks with Fort Mill’s officials have gone very smoothly.”

Fort Mill will relocate Town Hall functions from 112 Confederate Street, with expansion of the new site planned once closing is complete. The Fort Mill Police Department, now on the lower level of Town Hall, will then expand into the main floor.

“The town has outgrown the current Town Hall and police department,” said Dennis Pieper, town manager.

“This purchase provides us with the much needed office and parking space at a lower cost and in a great location. In addition, we will now be able to better serve our utility customers by offering drive up windows for payments.”

The week prior to the announcement, the town started the process of amending its capital improvements plan to help fund the expansion. Items must be on that list to receive impact fee funding, but the town isn’t obligated to fund them. A public hearing and final reading on the plan amendment should come May 23, officials said.

The initial plan assumed at some point the town would have to purchase land for and construct a new Town Hall, then allow the Fort Mill Police Department to expand into the current one. The town’s administrative, law enforcement and judicial staff share a building they say isn’t big enough for all of them. The original capital needs plan estimated $9.3 million for a Town Hall and $2.2 million to expand the police department.

Now that the town now won’t have to buy land and build from scratch, expanding both Town Hall and the police department should cost significantly less – $2.5 million to acquire and move into the Comporium building and $300,000 to retrofit Town Hall for law enforcement. Impact fees, charged on new construction in town to help offset costs for a growing community, could be used, but won’t foot the full bill, at least not right away. Since collections began Oct. 1, 2015, the municipal facilities fund collected about $104,000. The town could look to alternate revenue streams, which could be repaid or bonded through impact fee revenue.

Comporium will relocate its Fort Mill employees to offices in downtown Rock Hill as the company looks for “space in a new high visibility location that would complement a retail modernization strategy,” Dosch said. The company is moving its S.C. 160 West store in Fort Mill across the street into a new Stonecrest site, beside the Wal-Mart in Tega Cay. A sales group should be working there by Labor Day, Dosch said.

Guynn Savage, Fort Mill mayor, said Comporium’s consolidation began a conversation that led to something positive for the company and the town.

“Fortunately, that conversation resulted in a great win-win,” she said.

“Comporium’s deep history of support of the community continues, and the town avoids the larger cost of construction by re-purposing a building in the center of the town.”

This story was originally published May 16, 2016 at 10:46 AM with the headline "Fort Mill Town Hall to move into Comporium building."