Goodbye, Panthers: What's next for Rock Hill?

- Yeah, it'll take about five months to tear down what it took construction crews almost a year to build here in Rock Hill, but before it's gone.

Well, how about one last look inside what would've been the Panthers headquarters and practice facility?

(traffic driving) (bluesy music) Maybe you've seen it from a distance, driving by on I-77 just beyond the trees, that massive roof sloping down from a sky, high steel skeleton.

But up close, there's no scoreboard or sidelines here.

No huddles or halftime highlights, which is why this hulking half-finished home of the Panthers still feels, for now at least, like a loss for Rock Hill.

- Yeah, there's disappointment.

You know, there was a lot of promise, you know, a lot of excitement about what could be out there.

- [Sonier] Instead, Mayor John Gettys says, Rock Hill made a deal with a local demolition company to knock the whole thing down for a dollar.

The city keeps the land, the company keeps the salvage steel to sell off what it can, but when the Panthers stopped construction here, hundreds of construction jobs also disappeared, leaving behind 350,000 square feet of unfinished offices and unwanted training space and unused building materials and especially the unkept promise of that NFL home here.

- Well, it's been there for a while and everyone that plays in that game, so to speak, for a structure that big, they've known about it, couldn't not know about it, right?

So if there was any real interest in that, we would've heard by now.

And so how long do you wait - [Sports Announcer] Down the sideline, see you later.

(rock music) - [Sonier] It all seemed like a good idea at the time, the Panthers still playing their games at uptown Charlotte's Bank of America Stadium, but just about everything else from weeks of pre-season practice, (crowd cheering) to players picking up their Panther paychecks.

- What's up, big dog?

- [Sonier] It would all happen just over the state line instead here in Rock Hill - You know, football city USA.

(crowd cheering) Football city USA.

All right, you're gonna know Rock Hill.

That was team owner David Tepper's original plan.

getting a thumbs up from South Carolina's governor and others, promising to turn Rock Hill into Pantherville, part NFL team headquarters, part football fan fantasy camp, part Rock Hill concert stage and event center, all surrounded by homes and hotels and even a new sports medicine hospital.

- So this is going to be a showcase down here and we're gonna bring people down to this region and we'll have, you know, just a sense of excellence, not only up there for the football team, but everything we do down here in Rock Hill, South Carolina.

(crowd cheering) - But for Rock Hill, well, that was then.

And this is now.

(blues music) Yeah, we're out here in what would've been the middle of the Carolina Panthers practice field, but now, well, it's pretty much the middle of a demolition project.

That's where the stands were supposed to be.

And behind us, big glass panels for an enclosed area where fans could also watch practice.

Now it's just gravel and mud.

- Understandably, some people that still aren't, you know, over it yet.

And you're right, they know who the bad guy is.

Inaccurate statements that were made, the attempt to belittle our community by others.

And I think that that burns people more than actually the development changing.

But now it's developable, and the infrastructure is pretty much already in place to a large degree.

- [Sonier] Yep, Mayor Gettys says once the unfinished building is gone, it's what's left on the Panthers property that still makes it attractive.

The rocks and the hills here in Rock Hill are mostly cleared now on this 240 acres, leaving the next developer who wants to build here with a big head start.

- By making sure it's not an eyesore, making sure it's not something that is a black eye for all of us or a road to nowhere for anyone, there's not a better site, I think, in the southeast region for good development than this site.

- [Sonier] And then there's this brand new exit on the interstate still under construction, the state of South Carolina keeping up its end the bargain, even after the Panthers pulled out, which means pulling in to this property on newly built roads will be no problem.

- You get off an interstate and pull into your your parking lot ain't a bad deal.

- Yeah.

And speaking of bad deals, we ask the mayor of Rock Hill if there's a lesson here for Charlotte.

- They're gonna have their hands full because he's gonna go in and say, "You see what I did to Rock Hill?

I'll do to y'all."

- [Sonier] Making Future stadium deals with the same team owner who came into South Carolina looking like a hero.

- Dave Tepper is a great entrepreneur, businessman.

He's very generous, he's highly regarded - [Sonier] But eventually leaving Rock Hill with zero.

- And Charlotte's got a lot more to lose than we did.

I mean, you've got a franchise.

It's our franchise, I'm a PSO owner.

Don't get me wrong.

I'm sure they'll handle it just fine, but I'm glad that ain't me.

(laughs) - And what about the Panthers?

Well, they were supposed to hold their pre-season training camp here in Rock Hill for this coming season but looks like they'll be back at Wofford University in Spartanburg instead.