Criminal Defense Lawyer in Rock Hill, SC

Rock Hill has more than 150 new residences planned, for seniors and sports fans.

The mix of townhomes and apartments would add options downtown, and on the Cherry Road corridor. Both would come with new amenities, including a dog park near Rock Hill’s newest sports facility.

Here are the details on what’s planned:

Rock Hill Townhomes by Bleachery Fieldhouse

Rock Hill developer Southern Street Development plans to build 80 townhomes beside the city’s new sports arena, the Bleachery Fieldhouse.

Two years ago, the city approved plans for the more than 40,000-square-foot sports site at 605 W. White St. with townhomes just west of it. Plans required the townhomes to start construction within a year of Bleachery Fieldhouse opening, which happened in December.

In addition to helping the Rock Hill Sports & Event Center host larger weekend tournaments for basketball or volleyball, Bleachery Fieldhouse is the city’s new pickleball hub for weekday play.

The more than 5-acre residential property on both sides of Lee Street will be split into two phases.

The first 26 townhomes will go south of Lee, between Constitution Boulevard and Stewart Avenue. They’re directly west of the sports site, behind an electric substation. That phase includes a dog park at the corner of Constitution and Stewart.

The second phase has 54 townhomes. It’s north of Lee, between Constitution and West White Street.

A submitted map shows an area listed as open space or an amenity area. Each phase will have green space, and options for the northern second phase include a covered outdoor gathering space, a fire pit or bench swings. Amenities have to be built once half the units in a phase are complete.

Peaks of Rock Hill apartments

Property owner ESB Holdings out of Charlotte applied to build the Peaks of Rock Hill senior apartments. The nearly 6-acre site at Neal Street and Bose Avenue would have 72 apartments in a 3-story building. The project is designed as an affordable, independent living community, according to city planners.

Peaks of Rock Hill would have 48 two-bedroom units, and 24 one-bedroom options. They’ll combine for more than 87,000 square feet. Access would come from two new driveways on Neal Street.

The community will have an outdoor covered patio, covered vehicle drop off area, indoor gathering spaces, a fitness room, community center with kitchen, computer center, small meeting rooms and laundry facilities, according to a letter from the developer to the city.

There also will be exercise classes, bingo, game nights and space for healthcare providers or beauticians to meet with residents. Sidewalk upgrades as part of the project will connect the site to a Walmart Neighborhood Market, just a short walk from the property.

ROCK HILL — As the second winter storm in the span of two weeks passed through Rock Hill and York County on Jan. 31, it dropped at least 6 inches of snow across much of the area.

Accumulations totals released by the National Weather Service Greenville-Spartanburg on Feb. 1 show accumulations on the low end ranging from 4 inches about one mile south of Rock Hill to about 7 inches in parts of Rock Hill, Tega Cay and Fort Mill.

The northernmost parts of the county saw the highest snowfall totals, with 9 inches recorded in Clover and north of Fort Mill, and 10 inches recorded at Lake Wylie — the highest total in York County.

Across the state line in the Charlotte metro area, parts of Mecklenburg and Gaston counties saw up to 1 foot of snow, and Cabarrus County had the highest totals of up to 16 inches.

Thomas Winesett, a meteorologist for the weather service’s Greenville-Spartanburg office, said those accumulation totals were on par with expectations.

“We were looking at that general 6-to-10 inch range across the county in the forecast,” Winesett said.

The NWS knew there would be a focused band of heavier snowfall in the area, he said. It was unknown where exactly it would set up, but locally heavier totals would fall within it.

“Part of that band, the southern part of it, kind of drifted across northeast York County,” Winesett said. “That’s what laid down some of those higher totals north of Rock Hill. That band was what was responsible for the foot-plus totals in parts of Charlotte.”

York County receives an average of about 4 inches of snow per year, Winesett said, so this snowstorm well surpassed that.

But averages don’t always tell the full story.

“It’s trickier with those averages because you can have some winters, like the last couple, where hardly anything happens,” Winesett said. “Then you can have a winter like this one.”

Averaging the uneventful years with those that have monumental winter storms leads to deceivingly low numbers.

“It’s not hard to have a snowier than average winter because all it takes is literally one storm like we just had, and now you had double the average snow,” Winesett said.

The last time a storm brought up to 10 inches of snow to the Charlotte area, Winesett said, was in 2004.

Plenty of snow remained on Feb. 1 as high temperatures hovered just above freezing, but temperatures were set to reach the 40s on Feb. 2 before again dipping below freezing overnight.

Main roads have been cleared in Rock Hill, but secondary roads and shaded roads across the county will remain hazardous as melting and refreezing occurs.

“With the amount of snow that fell, it’s going to stick around for a little while, especially in shaded locations,” Winesett said.

After dodging the worst impacts from a massive ice storm last weekend, the Rock Hill region could see half a foot or more of snow this weekend, according to weather forecasts.

The National Weather Service issued several winter storm watches on Thursday morning, including one for much of the Rock Hill region that runs from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning.

York and Chester counties are part of a three-state, more than 40-county region where the forecast predicts up to 7 inches of snow. It could accumulate between 4 and 7 inches east of Interstate 26, and between 2 and 4 inches throughout the region.

Wind gusts are expected at 25 to 35 mph.

A map from the weather service showing total snowfall from the storm shows Rock Hill, Chester and Charlotte getting 6 to 8 inches of snow.

“Snow is expected to rapidly stick to roads and other surfaces due to temperatures in the 20s,” according to the watch notice. “Travel conditions could deteriorate rapidly as early as Friday evening. Very gusty winds on Saturday could result in areas of blowing snow, causing very poor visibility.”

Rock HIll region could see power outages too

Like last weekend, forecasters predict difficult travel and potential power outages.

“The heavy snow will make many roads impassable and may produce scattered power outages due to the weight of the snow on tree limbs and power lines,” the watch notice said. “The hazardous conditions could impact the Friday evening commute. Gusty winds could bring down tree branches.”

Lancaster County gets its forecasts out of the National Weather Service’s Columbia office, so it often differs slightly from the York and Chester counties forecasts out of the Greer office. A similar winter storm watch is in place for Lancaster County, but from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon.

Heavy snow is possible across more than 20 counties in South Carolina and Georgia, in that storm watch. The area could see 2 to 5 inches of snow.

“Saturday night and Sunday morning will be bitterly cold with wind chills from 0 to 5 degrees possible,” according to the watch notice.

This weekend’s forecast comes a week after a massive winter storm blanketed much of the country. It came as an ice storm in this area on Saturday, but the Rock Hill region was spared many of the damaging effects that other places in the storm’s path felt.

Some roads were closed in the region, events were canceled and public schools were either held online or delayed through Wednesday.

Amid national unrest surrounding immigration enforcement and citizenship status, new census figures shine a light on the Rock Hill region to show who lives here, where they came from and how communities are changing.

The number of people born in other countries is increasing along with the total population across York, Lancaster and Chester counties, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures released Thursday. So, too, is the number of residents who are not U.S. citizens.

Nearly 28,000 people across the three-county region, or 6.4% of everyone here, were born outside the U.S. as non-citizens. Of those residents, 46.4% became naturalized citizens. The other 53.6%, or nearly 15,000 people, aren’t citizens.

The new figures are estimate averages from a five-year span of Census Bureau surveys, ending in 2024, known as the American Community Survey. Five-year numbers are the most accurate estimates the Census Bureau produces across a range of topics, and for the widest range of communities. Citizenship is one of those topics.

The Census Bureau never asks survey participants whether they are in the country legally.

Non-citizens could be undocumented immigrants. They could also be school teachers brought in from other countries amid staff shortages, or skilled workers in a growing number of international businesses across the region.

The Rock Hill region’s growth in non-citizens is tied both to its overall population increase, and a higher rate of foreign-born residents.

There are nearly 5,000 more non-citizens listed in the 2020-2024 survey than in the 2015-2019 one. They make up 3.4% of the total population in the latest survey, up from 2.5% in the 2015-2019 data.

Naturalized citizens show a similar trend. They comprise 3% of the total population in the most recent figures, up from 2.4% in 2015-2029. That’s in increase of more than 3,500 naturalized citizens in that span.

Rock Hill region non-citizens and naturalized citizens

Area residents born in different countries took varying routes to get here, the new federal figures show.

Non-citizens across the state and region are far likelier to have been born in Latin America than in any other region. Only Fort Mill is the exception, where 9.5% of its non-citizens came from Latin American countries.

In Rock Hill, that figure is 81.2%. People born in Latin America make up 49% of York County’s non-citizens, compared to 64.4% in Lancaster County and 93.3% in Chester County.

People born in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America are more likely to be naturalized citizens. Fort Mill, again, is the exception with its population from North America.

There are nearly three times as many non-citizens as naturalized ones in the town, from that region.

Overall, though, people from Latin America account for the most naturalized citizens. York County has 226 more naturalized citizens from Asia than from Latin America, but Lancaster and Chester counties have a combined 520 more from Latin America.

More on Rock Hill region citizenship

Here are some additional details on the Rock Hill region’s non-citizen population:

ROCK HILL, S.C. (WBTV) - Chances are increasing that the Carolinas could see more winter weather this weekend.

Roadways in South Carolina have been an ongoing concern. While the state has committed to addressing the need, winter storms can leave more damage behind.

The City of Rock Hill had crews prepping for the weekend’s winter storm, and now city leaders are getting roads ready for possible snow this weekend.

“Certainly, we’ve got plenty of solutions. We’re prepared and have all the folks that we need to make sure that we’re ready to do a good job,” said Deputy City Manager Jimmy Bagley." And we partner with DOT to make sure we have enough crews out either plowing or spreading, whichever we need to do.”

Once the ice melts away, remnants of winter weather can still be found in the damage it can leave behind on roads.

“You get the rain, and we all talk about potholes. We’ll see what we call alligatoring where the roads are kind of crumbly,” Bagley said. “If you get a little bit of a crack in that water gets in, and it starts freezing, it expands.”

Almost 10 years ago, the state committed to an improvement plan. The South Carolina Department of Transportation reported that a quarter of the state’s 41,000 miles of highway are under contract for paving, and more than 450 bridges have been repaired or replaced.

The infrastructure Report Card rates the state’s roads as poor, citing increased needs to address capacity and safety. Cleaning up after winter storms can also cause damage.

“The other part that is damaging is when we start scraping the roads; obviously, we lose all the reflectors. You’ll see a lot of those piled up, so we have to try to pick those up and put those back,” Bagley said. “And eventually, you can imagine scraping roads is not a good idea anyway, but it’s better than having ice.”

The infrastructure Report Card rated the state’s bridge maintenance low, saying the average age of bridges in the state is 39 years of its 50-year life service, and rating 11% of the state’s bridges as “deficient”.

Bridges can be more dangerous for drivers when ice is present.

“Most of the bridges are more likely to have problems because one, they don’t have a lot of structure underneath, so they freeze more often, freeze quicker. And that’s where we run into a lot of trouble with black ice where you just can’t see it,” Bagley said.

The City of Rock Hill said they were well prepared last week and will be again this weekend.

“We’ll have our crews out to try to clear the roads as quickly as possible,” Bagley said. “Fortunately, snow is not usually as much of an issue.”

The city says it allocates millions to patching and repaving roadways. They provide updates on winter weather here.