University Center | Rock Hill, South Carolina

Story

Rock Hill South Carolina was home to a textile bleachery as well as a host city for manufacturing of cigarette filters- the Celenese plant. Combined, those industries supported 25% of the workforce, but when the cigarette industry declined and textiles moved overseas, the town of Rock Hill was devastated.

Winthrop University was a thriving campus that was neighboring an abandoned one-million-square-foot textile mill in its backyard.

Solution

Create a vision for a “factory of living and learning.” The ultimate goal was to create a cultural learning machine that would make use of the historic buildings.  We needed to connect them.

In Rock Hill, the city was actually one of the pioneers of sports tourism and built an incredibly impressive outdoor tournament center for tennis, football, soccer, and baseball – including a $10 million BMX track – all in an effort to attract young kids and their parents to Rock Hill for amateur sports competitions.

Their first year in operation, 30,000 people came to the city for the BMX Bike World Championship and the tax revenues from hotel and related hospitality sales more than paid for the complex. So why not do indoor sports?

Tim went a step further and proposed an indoor tournament center in the project. A feasibility study was soon underway and estimated 3,000-5,000 visitors per week  would flock to Rock Hill.

Impact

Today, the 23-acre mixed used site known as University Center, is home to apartments, student housing, active adult living, commercial office space, a hotel, retail and restaurants, outdoor festival spaces – and of course – an indoor athletic tournament complex.

What started in 2015 is now 70% complete with an estimated finish in 2024. Since it began, and with the opening of the indoor tournament center, city hospitality taxes grew from $23 million to over $60 million! As the saying goes, creating lasting economic prosperity is a marathon not a sprint: we’ll save those for track meets at the stadium.