Rock Hill inks $1.5B investment deal with pharmaceutical company for former Panthers site

ROCK HILL — A pharmaceutical company and a medical center will purchase 75 acres off Interstate 77 in Rock Hill, taking over land previously slated for a $500 million Carolina Panthers practice facility and team headquarters.

Octapharma — previously identified only by the code name “Palmetto Rock” — pledged in an announcement this week to invest $1.5 billion in a biomedical campus and hire 1,500 people over the next decade or so. And last month, Novant Health said it would invest $300 million and hire roughly 250 people.

City leadership has previously said it planned to target the life sciences or pharmaceutical industries for the site.

Octapharma, which creates medicines using proteins from donated human plasma, will purchase 50 acres to build its facility.

Headquartered in Lachen, Switzerland, Octapharma has more than 40 manufacturing and office sites worldwide, with production facilities in Austria, France, Germany and Sweden. The Rock Hill site marks its first in the United States.

Operations are expected to begin in the mid-2030s, according to the governor’s office.

Novant will purchase 25 acres.

Rock Hill city spokeswoman Katie Quinn said the sale of the property hasn’t closed yet and the purchase price details are still being finalized.

Once the sale is complete, that will still leave more than 160 acres still owned by the city as part of a legal settlement with the pro football team’s billionaire owner, David Tepper, after he halted construction in 2022.

After Tepper’s development company promised in 2019 to move 150 employees to the Palmetto State, the state Legislature approved an estimated $115 million in state tax breaks. Those were never actually given.

The state Department of Transportation also spent $80 million to build an interchange to the site. The Tepper organization ultimately covered $5.3 million of the cost.

More than halfway through construction — with $170 million spent on the 5,000-seat stadium, 500-seat indoor practice facility, and 600,000-square-foot headquarters building — Tepper, a hedge fund billionaire and the NFL’s richest owner, made what his organization called a “difficult but prudent decision” to abandon the project. It followed disagreements between the city and Tepper over $225 million in bond financing from Rock Hill that would have covered the cost of streets, sewer and other public infrastructure.

In addition to housing the NFL team’s practice facility and headquarters, the marquis development was touted as a major visitor and business destination in the fast-growing suburb of Charlotte. As the property built out with offices, stores, hotels, apartments and a sports medicine clinic from Charlotte-based Atrium Health, city officials estimated, total investment would top $1 billion.

This time, South Carolina is offering Octapharma income tax breaks worth $1,500 for each new job opening.

Wages for the pharmaceutical manufacturing plant will average more than $100,000 per year. Jobs in the adjacent headquarters building should average more than $140,000 per year.

The state Department of Commerce also approved a $65 million grant to get the site ready for construction, build the facility and pay for road improvements.

York County also granted Octapharma a reduced property tax rate for 40 years. Laws passed in 2017 and 2021 effectively lowered the property tax rate on manufacturers from 10.5% to 6%. This proposed deal takes the rate even lower — to 4% — and provides additional credits enabling the company to further buy down its tax bill for 30 years — a 50% reduction for the first decade, 35% in years 11 through 20 and 20% off the final 10 years.

The property taxes the company does pay over 40 years will be split three ways: $286.8 million for schools, $71.4 million for the city and $50.8 million for York County.

“Octapharma’s decision to establish its new corporate offices and advanced manufacturing operations in York County is an investment in our community’s future,” York County Council Chairwoman Christi Cox said in a statement.

“We pursued a development strategy designed to deliver lasting value for our residents, businesses, educational institutions and public-sector partners,” City of Rock Hill Mayor John Gettys added. “Octapharma is exactly that kind of investment, creating high-quality jobs across all education levels for generations to come.”