A surprise announcement from SCDOT’s top official may resolve Panthers road money

South Carolina’s top transportation official has interjected a new option in the debate on how to pay for roads around the site of the failed Carolina Panthers project in Rock Hill.

Christy Hall, S.C. secretary of transportation, told elected officials and road experts in Rock Hill on Friday afternoon that her department is close to finalizing a plan where $10 million in federal grant money would finish key roads. That money would finance connection of the new exit 81 interchange, built for the failed Panthers project, to the Mt. Gallant Road corridor in Rock Hill.

The announcement Friday came more than two months after a somewhat spirited back-and-forth among area officials about how public money should be spent for what originally was work the Panthers were expected to fund. Hall’s comments came moments before a scheduled final decision that would’ have bumped $10 million from exit 82 work at Cherry and Celanese roads, to exit 81.

Should $10 million in public money pay for roads the Panthers were supposed to pave?

The Rock Hill-Fort Mill Area Transportation Study, or RFATS, policy committee still voted to finalize $7.7 million from projected excess in exit 82 funding for work at exit 77 (near U.S. 21 and S.C. 5) in Rock Hill. The other $10 million that would’ve gone to the former Panthers interchange can stay with the Cherry and Celanese interchange or be used on area projects elsewhere.

Projections that the Cherry and Celanese work can be done with some existing funding leftover led to the proposed switches. Similarly, Hall said she believes the mix of federal, state and local funding sources for the exit 81 interchange can get that job done and still cover the $10 million for connections to Mt. Gallant.

“We need a little bit more time to get it finalized,” Hall said Friday afternoon, “but we feel pretty confident.”

Federal money for Panthers project

The vision for the Panthers project included a new $90 million interchange off I-77. Funding would bring together state commerce department, federal and local match dollars. In mid-2020, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced $34.6 million for the project.

Included in that mix is federal grant money. Those grant dollars wouldn’t stay in the area if any are left over once the interchange is built.

“We believe that there will be some of that grant money that would otherwise be returned back to Washington,” Hall told the RFATS committee Friday. “We would view it as, maybe there’s another way to accomplish the connection.”

Here’s how far three decades of federal road money for Rock Hill, Fort Mill area goes

Debate on public money

In November, RFATS policy committee members expressed differing opinions on what to do at the failed Panthers site. The $10 million switch from exit 82 to exit 81 would pay for road upgrades promised by the NFL team before its headquarters plan fell through in Rock Hill.

Some members balked at putting public dollars on roads promised by the private developer. Others said the money wouldn’t go to those roads until the Panthers site became public property through bankruptcy, and without the money a new interchange would lead to nothing.

RFATS allocates federal dollars. Hall’s solution involves federal dollars. The difference is, money RFATS doesn’t have to spend there can go to other key interchange or road projects. The federal grant money Hall brought up is use-it-or-lose-it.

York County Councilman Tom Audette, against the funding switch in November, called the solution presented by Hall great news for the area. Rock Hill Mayor John Gettys, who supported the switch in November, now agrees with Audette.

Like Hall, Gettys said a deal isn’t complete but he expects one.

“There is an understanding between the relevant partners that we will get there,” Gettys said.

Officials on Friday largely kept to a recent trend where they don’t mention the Panthers or owner David Tepper by name, as relationships fractured with the failed headquarters deal.

“Sec. Hall has been a wonderful partner to try to find a manner in which we can overcome the hurdles left by a bankrupt debtor in this area,” Gettys said.

Policy committee members largely support the separate money swap to put $7.7 million toward I-77 at exit 77. Work there has been on a list without funding for more than a decade. Soon it could join recent, ongoing or planned work to vastly improve the interstate system in York County from Carowinds to Gold Hill Road, S.C. 160 at Baxter and Kingsley, Cherry and Celanese in Rock Hill, the former Panthers site and more.

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