The Carolina Panthers NFL American football franchise has revealed renderings for a major new development that will feature a sports and entertainment venue that will be able to hold up to 20,000 people.
‘The Park’ will have 5,000 permanent seats, but will be adaptable to a range of sporting and non-sporting events, such as concerts.
Mark Hart, the chief operating officer of the Panthers’ parent company, Tepper Sports & Entertainment, held a virtual meeting on Tuesday evening alongside York County and the City of Rock Hill to outline the date and design for the Populous-designed project, which will also feature a range of other facilities, including the team’s headquarters and its main training facility.
“The Park itself, with its scalability between 5,000 and as high as 20,000, I think is a great platform for festivals, concerts – all kinds of large ticketed events,” Hart said. “We are working with the Rock Hill school district to make that available for high school sports, high school football, and all kinds of high school activities: proms, gatherings, conferences, and educational programmes.”
The Park will be part of a development that will cover nearly four million square feet and also comprise restaurants, retail and office space, a healthcare facility, apartments, hotels and trails. Construction work has already begun on the training facility and headquarters, with a completion date of 2023 having been earmarked.
The mixed-use development, which has been dubbed ‘The Rock’, will split enormous indoor and outdoor training areas with sliding glass doors that will be 80 feet high. For the Panthers, there will also be a 20,000 square-foot weights room, a 6,000 square-foot locker room and a 5,000 square-foot hydrotherapy room.
“We saw the vision of the site and we knew from the very beginning that it was more than just a football facility and a couple of fields,” Hart said. “We saw it as the great start of a massive development.
“This site gives us the opportunity to provide mixed-use entertainment and corporate HQs. Certainly the visibility along the highway gives us great opportunities to do great things and attract tenants and corporate tenants perhaps out of Charlotte or from other parts of the country to this site.
“It’s all designed to look great, feel great, and spur great development opportunities for anyone who wants to come.”
Image: Populous / Carolina Panthers
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