Charlotte suburb’s spat over fees jeopardizes $1.5B biopharma deal for 1,500 jobs
The $1.5 billion Octapharma headquarters project in Rock Hill, which is set to add more than 1,500 high-paying jobs, is in jeopardy due to a disagreement between the city and York County on how to dole out tax incentives.
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On Wednesday, York County Council will cast the last of three votes needed for an incentive deal to bring the Swiss biomedical company to Palmetto Research Park. At its most recent vote last week, the county changed the funding breakdown of where $362 million to be paid by Octapharma in lieu of taxes would go.
The county decision took projected revenue for the city and sent it instead to the Rock Hill School District. Instead of Rock Hill giving up half its money from the Octapharma deal, the city would give up all of it over the 40-year incentive.
It was not immediately clear how that $362 million would be divided between the city, county and school district, or just between the county and the school district.
If the county makes that change, Rock Hill could pull out of the deal which risks the entire Octapharma project. Without an incentive deal the company would have to pay hundreds of million dollars more in traditional taxes.
Rock Hill City Council gave conditional approval to the tax incentive agreement on June 22, contingent on receiving tax or fee revenue from the project. That approval would be immediately rescinded and voided if the city isn’t included in that funding.
York County Council has “the power to kill this dream” of landing Octapharma by cutting off revenue to the city, Mayor John Gettys said in a Facebook post Tuesday. Gettys doesn’t know why five of seven Council members opted for the change, and he isn’t interested in rationalizations or justifications.
“We get one opportunity like this and no more,” Gettys said.
Octapharma is expected to generate $362 million in public revenue — fees in lieu of taxes — throughout the incentive deal that Council can approve Wednesday. Rock Hill City Council would have to approve it too, after having agreed to its part at the different funding breakdown.
Tax agreements that allow large companies to pay a fee in place of taxes are common in South Carolina, where the industrial tax rate of 10.5% can be more than twice what other states in the region charge.
The rationale is that without a deal, economic development leaders say, projects wouldn’t come and there wouldn’t be new tax revenue.
The standard breakdown with fee agreements is that each public body gives up half of what it could collect, were it not for the incentive deal. Fee collections aren’t split evenly, though, because tax amounts vary.
Typically, the collection breakdown for projects in Rock Hill is the school district gets 62%, the city gets 24% and the county gets 14%.
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York County Councilman William “Bump” Roddey, who represents part of Rock Hill, has been trying to change that model with recent incentive deals. Roddey wants more money for schools and less for the city, figuring the city can make up funding through utility sales to incoming companies.
The county changed a deal late into its agreement process in December for a $240 million Costco distribution facility in Rock Hill, which the city begrudgingly approved to keep the deal alive. That move cost the city about $2.7 million over 20 years.
While Roddey has spoken in recent months about reducing the city’s share of tax incentive funding across all economic development projects to aid schools, the Octapharma deal could be impacted by the ghost of a former deal that never materialized at the same site.
The more than 200-acre Palmetto Research Park was set to become team headquarters and a practice facility for the Carolina Panthers before the team pulled out of the deal four years ago, amid a public funding dispute with the city. To lure the Panthers to Rock Hill, the city had agreed to give up its full share of fee revenue for that incentive deal.
“The city of Rock Hill was willing to give 100% of their taxes to the Carolina Panthers to land that deal,” Roddey said in proposing the funding changes last week. “This is the same deal that’s on the table today.”
Rock Hill spent the past four years looking for something better than the Panthers project, which was under construction before the company set up by the team to do business in Rock Hill filed for bankruptcy.
Data centers and large gas stations are some of the projects the city turned down as leaders sought out life sciences and advanced manufacturing buyers.
Gettys shared a rendering of a data center farm on the property from a company “willing to pay a lot of money” to use the site, he said. City and county officials largely hail Octapharma as a prime opportunity, differing only on how much each public body should give up to get the company.
Rock Hill wants a project that will transform the area through high wages, Gettys said, but the city “cannot save the deal” if the county votes again to eliminate city revenue.
“Value is not found in tax receipts,” Gettys said in the post. “Value is found in creating opportunities for our people.”
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This story was originally published July 8, 2026 at 1:07 PM.
