Map courtesy of the York County Planning Commission
A concept plan submitted to county planners by Foundry Commercial shows three new buildings that would replace the offices, with a combined space of almost 460,000 sq. ft. That construction would be about 33 percent larger than the office space there now.
Two large, multi-story office buildings near Interstate 77 in Fort Mill, S.C., just south across the state line from Charlotte, N.C., could soon be demolished to make way for warehouses.
Foundry Commercial, a national real estate developer, has applied to York County to rezone 32 acres at 3476, 3480 and 3560 Stateview Blvd. for light industrial use. The Lakemont East properties near the Carowinds amusement park currently include Wells Fargo Home Mortgage buildings.
A concept plan submitted to county planners by Foundry Commercial shows three new buildings that would replace the offices, with a combined space of almost 460,000 sq. ft. That construction would be about 33 percent larger than the office space there now.
The York County planning commission held a discussion on the proposal Feb. 12 before unanimously recommending in favor of the rezoning.
York County Council will make the final decision, the Rock Hill Herald reported.
Further details on the new construction would come when the property owner submits plans for it that have to go through the civil review process, county Planning Manager Diane Dil told the newspaper.
Interstate 77 at State Line Has Become Development Hub
Much of the area around Carowinds, which straddles the South Carolina-North Carolina line, includes industrial or warehouse space.
In addition, several spec buildings have popped up in recent years, according to the Rock Hill news source. Last fall, for instance, the largest property sale on record in York County involved $106 million of industrial space near the park.
The county recommends the rezoning for the latest project because plans fit what already is on the ground, Dil said.
The concept plan is not binding, but one submitted to her office shows what could come after demolition of the current office buildings: A pair of larger buildings would face the interstate; one would be almost 196,000 sq. ft., while the other would be approximately 173,000 sq. ft.
They also would have a similar configuration to the older office buildings but would take up much more of the parking space. The industrial construction design has a lot less parking, but a much larger footprint compared to the offices.
Behind the two large front buildings, a smaller building encompassing 90,000 sq. ft. is proposed to include retention ponds beside it and would back up to a 60-acre manufacturing site that borders the North Carolina line.
Each of the sites are adjacent to the Carowinds Boulevard exit on I-77 and the newly developed property also would have six entrances off Stateview Boulevard.
Market Changes Led Wells Fargo Mortgage to Leave Fort Mill
One of the three existing buildings at the site off I-77 was completed in 2002 after Dallas-based Lexington Fort Mill LLC bought the three-story, almost 172,000-sq.-ft. structure from Charlotte's Crescent Resources (now Crescent Communities) in December of that year for more than $17.9 million.
A similarly sized second building, immediately north of the first one, opened in 2004; it sold for almost $29 million.
By 2007, the company employed about 2,000 people in town, making it one of the three largest employers in York County at the time.
Additionally, Fort Mill represented most of the bank's South Carolina workforce before Wells Fargo had any branches on the East Coast.
However, that was also when the company began the first in a series of job cuts amid housing market changes.
In late 2008, the financial giant announced an undisclosed but "small number" of employees at the Fort Mill mortgage center would lose their jobs ahead of the bank's planned purchase of Wachovia Corp.
Several shifts in staffing soon followed as well.
In late 2015, the bank announced 350 mortgage servicing positions would move from uptown Charlotte to Fort Mill. Yet Wells Fargo also began a series of WARN reports that year impacting hundreds of jobs. A WARN report is given when large companies plan significant layoffs or closures, according to the Rock Hill Herald.
From 2015 to 2018 Wells Fargo issued eight WARN reports for its Fort Mill operations. The first six, listed as closures, affected 305 jobs; the last two involved 188 layoffs.
Wells Fargo employees moved out of the buildings completely earlier this year, Josh Dunn, a spokesperson of the bank, wrote the Herald in a Feb. 13 email.
"This was a real estate consolidation — no jobs were eliminated in this move," he explained.
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