Rock Hill could land 1,200 jobs in new $1.5B HQ project at former Panthers site
Construction is expected to start this year on a $1.5 billion corporate headquarters facility in Rock Hill, at the former Carolina Panthers headquarters site off Interstate 77.
York County Council will vote on two items tonight related to a proposal for an unnamed biopharmaceutical company that intends to build in Palmetto Research Park and create more than 1,200 jobs.
The project, by job count and investment, ranks among the largest ever in the Rock Hill region.
The global company would establish its corporate headquarters and a manufacturing site, according to county documents. Headquarters jobs would average more than $141,000 per year, with manufacturing jobs at nearly $103,000. Combined, the average wage would be nearly $61,000 higher than the county average.
Construction would start late this year.
Nearly $1.3 billion of the project would go to the manufacturing facility, with $190 million for the corporate headquarters.
One county decision Monday would begin the process of setting up a fee that the company would pay instead of taxes. Those agreements are common with large economic development projects and necessary, county economic development officials say, to compete with neighboring states for deals.
Details on how much the company would pay in comparison to typical rates haven’t been released. That decision still requires two more county votes and a public hearing.
A second decision Monday related to the project would approve a $65 million state incentive grant for the project.
The deal is code-named Project Palmetto Rock.
The city of Rock Hill gave initial approval to a sale of 50 acres in Palmetto Research Park for a project by that same name in late April, The Herald reported. The city didn’t give details on the buyer or sale price.
Last week, the city finalized a sale of 25 acres at Palmetto Research Park to Novant Health. The North Carolina-based hospital system plans to build a $300 million medical campus at Palmetto Parkway and Mt. Gallant Road.
New business at former Panthers site
Rock Hill owns a 215-acre parcel off Exit 81 that once was slated to become the team headquarters and practice facility for the Carolina Panthers. That plan was announced in 2019 but scrapped by the team three years later amid a dispute between the team and city of how and when public money for the project would be used.
Rock Hill got the former farm site with a new interstate exit that was built for the team through bankruptcy for the company set up by the Panthers to handle business related to the project.
The city began looking for a new project or projects, aiming at life sciences or advanced manufacturing.
Rock Hill advertises Palmetto Research Park as 209 acres of cleared property with 109 acres contiguous to it that could be developed.
Job growth in Rock Hill region’s biggest deals
Since 2014, The I-77 Alliance has had 170 announcements for new businesses coming to a five-county area between Charlotte and Columbia. Those deals combine for more than $11 billion of investment.
The I-77 Alliance promotes economic development across the three-county Rock Hill region, plus Fairfield and Richland counties.
Only nine economic recruitment deals in that time, and none in the past three years, came with projections of 1,000 or more jobs. It’s been eight years since a York, Lancaster or Chester County announcement hit that mark.
At 1,200 jobs, the new Rock Hill project would rank No. 6 in the Rock Hill region since 2014 for the alliance in projected job count.
The three largest announcements happened on the same day in 2016, when plans were unveiled for LPL Financial (3,000 jobs) and Lash Group (2,400) in the Kingsley area of Fort Mill, and Giti Tire (1,700) in Chester County.
The $1.5 billion investment also ranks high for the region.
Only the Scout Motors electric vehicle manufacturing plant announcement in Richland County is higher for the alliance, at $2 billion. Panthers officials listed their project at $2 billion before it was pulled, but there wasn’t a formal announcement.
The highest investment projects in the Rock Hill region at the time they were announced are Albemarle Corporation in Chester County ($1.3 billion in 2023), QTS Data Centers in Lake Wylie ($1 billion in 2023) and Giti Tire ($560 million in 2014).
In recent months, QTS officials have begun referencing their York County data center plan as an $8-billion project.
Pharmaceutical growth and life science projects
Rock Hill began targeting life science companies shortly after the Panthers plan fell through, due to high wages in that industry. It’s also a growing industry nationally.
AstraZeneca announced plans last summer for a multibillion-dollar biomedical manufacturing site in Virginia as part of $50 billion investment plans nationwide by 2030.
Lilly announced plans in January for a $3.5 billion medical manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania set to create 850 jobs. The same company began a $2 billion conversion in Concord, North Carolina, four years ago from a former cigarette plant to a drug manufacturing site.
Illinois announced in February that AbbVie will create 300 jobs with a $380 million pharmaceutical ingredient plant in North Chicago.
Global pharmaceutical company UCB announced plans last year for a $5 billion, 800-job biologics manufacturing facility in the U.S., but hadn’t determined a location.
South Carolina has 15 life science companies and organizations that generate more than $20 billion in annual economic impact for the state, according to life sciences trade group SCbio. Those companies combine for nearly 64,000 jobs.
This story was originally published June 15, 2026 at 10:00 AM.