I see many inquiries coming into Carmen’s blog asking for the distance between Charlotte North Carolina and Fort Mill South Carolina. As you may have read in Carmen’s market research posts (Fort Mill SC Rank 6 Out Of Ten Fastest Growing Metros), the Fort Mill and Tega Cay area is part of the Charlotte NC MSA (metropolitan statistical area) for census and other analysis basis. I guess you could say Fort Mill and Tega Cay are close enough to be considered suburbs of Charlotte. So here are the distance and drive time facts related to the distance between Charlotte and Fort Mill.

Fort Mill is located south of Charlotte of interstate 77. The North Carolina and South Carolina northern border on interstate 77 is 7.8 miles or 15 minutes drive time from downtown Fort Mill. The western NC/SC border on Highway 160 is 6 miles or 8 minutes drive time to downtown Fort Mill. The eastern NC/SC border to highway 521 is 6.6 miles or 11 minutes drive time to downtown Fort Mill.

Tega Cay is located 6.2 miles or 11 minutes drive time from downtown Fort Mill. Downtown Charlotte to Tega Cay or Fort Mill is approx 18.9 miles or 23 minutes drive time. If you live in Tega Cay or Fort Mill and work in south Charlotte near Westinghouse and Interstate 77 the distance is 8 miles and 11 minutes Drive time.

Headed further south on Interstate 77 is Rock Hill South Carolina which is 6 miles and 8 minutes drive time from downtown Fort Mill. If you take business highway 21 it is approx 4 miles to Rock Hill from Fort Mill.

There is a real benefit living in a smaller town like Fort Mill or Tega Cay (especially on Lake Wylie)(read top-10-reasons-to-live-in-fort-mill-sc) but when you want the larger city amenities like; work, shopping, sports (Panthers, Bobcats, Checkers) , restaurants, and other fun (Carolwinds Amusement Park), its nice to have Charlotte nearby.

• Get fully Pre-Approved before looking at houses.  (We offer this service free of charge)
• Allow at least 21 days to close (from contract being fully executed and loan application being made)
• Provide documents that your lender requests quickly (same day) and fully legible (make sure you give all the pages)
• Don’t move money within your accounts or apply for new credit during the process
• Set-up your homeowner’s insurance at least 10 days before closing.  (It really stinks to have loan approval and not be able to send out the closing package because of insurance, it only takes 10 minutes to get this done)
• DON’T quit your job… no really this does happen!
• ASK your lender any questions you have about the process… we are here to help.  The better you underestand what to expect, the better your overall experience will be!
• Do your mortgage with us… sorry I had to throw that one in!! 

 

Olan Carder contributes articles to Homesfortmill.com on a regular basis. He works in the Charlotte NC metro market which includes Fort Mill, Tega Cay, Lake Wylie SC,

Olan has recently started his own mortgage blog. If you are looking for more mortgage tips and information, check out his new blog at http://charlottemortgageonline.com/.

You may have notice many public rezoning signs around Fort Mill lately. Fort Mill SC could double in size if 5,000 acres are annexed by the city of Fort Mill by the end of this summer.

The 5,000 acres is the combined land of many Clear Springs Development areas including Kingsley and Springfield to name just a few and Leroy Springs acres. The City and developers have been working on Fort Mill’s annexation of the land for approx 2 years.

The First reading of the planned annexation is schedule for July 14th City Council meeting. The second reading is scheduled for the July 28th Fort Mill council meeting.

There has been several meetings between the developers and the city putting the annexation plans together. The city hopes to gain the tax revenue base of proposed mixed use commercial development areas. If the annexation plan is approved the city would have to provide the usual city services to these new development areas.

Close Springs Development is the development company that built the well known Baxter Village outside of Fort Mill. Baxter Village is not in the this proposed annexation plan. Close Springs Development is the development company the Close Family, the founders of Springs Industries, formed to manage their 7,000 acres of land around Fort Mill.

Some of the areas to be annexed are:

• Kingsley – Hwy 160 and Hwy 21 by-pass
• Springfield
• 30 acres at Merritt
• 345 acres at Avery
• 845 acresat McAlhaney Along the Catawba River
• 452 acres at Bradley Park
• 2,200 acres of recreation land including Anne Springs Close Greenway

If you are shopping for a home in the Tega Cay or Fort Mill area right now you will notice lawns looking brown instead of green these days. With higher or I should say HOT summer temperatures and water restrictions that are in place, it is difficult to maintain a bright green lawn.

So you might ask what are the current water restrictions? Here is an update.

Tega Cay’s city council did revise the current stage 3 water restrictions on May 31st. Stage 3 restriction have been in place since October of last year. We were blessed with much needed rain during the spring season so the council reduced the restrictions slightly from the April 21st, 2008 change. We are still in stage 3 water restriction with the following changes:

You are allowed to water lawns with sprinklers or irrigation systems one day a week.
Odd addresses are allowed to water any time on Saturdays
Even addresses are allowed to water anytime on Sundays.

The April 21st update only allowed you to water on the designated day from 12:01am to 9am. The May 31st change allows you to water anytime during your designated day.

Besides the change to the time of watering your lawns 1 day a week, you may now wash vehicles, watercraft, fill pools, and pressure wash structures/driveways on the same designated day of the week. But only one day a week on your designated day.

Residents are allowed to use hand held watering containers and hoses with spray nozzles to water plants, shrubs, flowers, containers, gardens, and lawns any time and any day of the week.

Tega Cay restrictions now match the current York County stage 3 restrictions. Fort Mill water restrictions are similar except the only day to water, wash, or fill is Saturday. Fort Mill did not break out different days for even or odd addresses.

In all jurisdictions, watering, washing, and filing on days other than your assigned day is strictly prohibited. And so is any water run off.

The use of irrigation systems that pump water directly from Lake Wylie are controlled by Duke Energy Lake Management and now are allowed to “pump” water only on Saturdays.

The information above is from the Tega Cay city website, Fort Mill city website, and the York County SC website. Click here for a PDF of the Tega Cay city May 31st amended water restriction.

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York County Council approved on May 19 to re-zone 32 acres in Fort Mill on highway 160 west across from Baxter Village to mixed use.

ELA, a Rock Hill based developer, original planned to build apartments but sought to add retail and office developmemt to the project. The development after last months county approval will now consist of 288 apartments and 110,605 square foot of retail and office space.

The buildings in the front of the development facing highway 160 will be 4 to 5 story buildings with retail and restaurants on the first floor and offices in the upper floors. The apartments will be located in the rear of the development.

The county has tried to restricted further commercial development on this part of highway 160 to minimize the traffic impact on the highway. But after looking at the prosed mixed use plan, the council did not see much difference in the traffic impact when comparing the original approved multifamily plan versus the proposed mixed use plan.

Site grading has already started. If you have been watching the work in the last few months a couple of older homes were removed from the front of this property and the development entrance has been graded. ELA predicts the project will take approx 2 years to complete.

Early January I wrote about Freightliner signing an 11 year lease with Koll Development for a 150,000 sq ft office in Fort Mill, SC. Freightliner plans to relocate 340 a sales and marketing jobs from Portland to Fort Mill, SC. (To review the post click the link = http://homesfortmill.com/fort-mill-news/freightliner-leases-150000-sq-ft-building-in-fort-mill-sc/) With this information, several people have asked what is happening with the rest of the Freightliner headquarters move? Why did Freightliner sign an 11 year lease if they plan to buy 300 acres of land in York County and build a new headquarters complex within the next 5 years? Are they really moving?

My sources have not heard of any announcements related to buying land or moving other than the news reports from last November. However they speculate that the 11 year lease has a possible early lease termination clause after five years. So I don’t think the 11 year lease announcement is any indication whether Freightliner has changed their mind on relocating their headquarters.

For the 340 Freightliners employees relocating, here is a current construction picture of the office building under construction in Fort Mill, SC.