A roughly 100-acre stretch of land along Fire Tower Road in Rock Hill, South Carolina is about to host one of the largest industrial buildings in the region after developers secured a $60.07 million construction loan for the project. The facility, called Firetower 77, will span 1,002,205 square feet once complete, cementing York County's growing status as an extension of Charlotte's booming logistics corridor.
JLL Capital Markets arranged the debt on behalf of developers McCraney Property Company and AEW Capital Management, placing the loan with Santander Bank, according to Capdex. The financing works out to roughly $59.94 per planned square foot for the sprawling logistics center, per the same report. As CommercialSearch reported, the project is located at 1798 Fire Tower Road and sits close to Interstate 77, less than 20 miles from the Interstate 485 interchange and about 25 miles from uptown Charlotte.
The deal follows earlier planning activity for a Fire Tower Road site. In October 2021, annexation and rezoning requests for a 29.3-acre site were scheduled to go before the Planning Commission the following Tuesday, according to the Charlotte Business Journal. HGR Construction is serving as general contractor, per York County records cited by CommercialSearch, and the facility is now slated to deliver in the fourth quarter of 2027.
A Logistics Address Built Around Highway Access
Firetower 77's appeal rests almost entirely on its location. The site sits less than one mile from Interstate 77, putting major East Coast ports within a 120-minute drive, according to JLL. JLL also noted the property sits within a 30-minute drive of Charlotte Douglas International Airport and Norfolk Southern's regional intermodal hub, which CommercialSearch placed about 25 miles north of the site, next to the airport.
Once finished, the building will occupy a 96-acre lot and feature a cross-dock configuration with 40-foot clear heights, 52-by-50-foot column spacing, 60-foot speed bays and 200-foot truck courts, per CommercialSearch's reporting. The project will also include 608 car parking spots and 392 trailer parking spaces. JLL has said the facility will give tenants access to more than 21 million residents within a four-hour drive.
Melissa Rose, Michael DiCosimo, Kate Rathman, Nicole Diaz and Magnus Kron of JLL negotiated the financing on behalf of the Firetower 77 borrowers, according to CommercialSearch's reporting.
Rock Hill Rides a National Mega-Warehouse Wave
Firetower 77 is landing in the middle of a national surge in bulk distribution megaprojects. Industrial construction starts for properties exceeding 1 million square feet reached 49 projects nationally through August, accounting for more than 32 percent of all U.S. industrial starts by square footage, according to Yardi Matrix data reported by CommercialCafe. That puts 2026 on track to record the highest volume of million-plus-square-foot project starts since 2022.
Charlotte's own pipeline reflects that momentum. The metro had 10.2 million square feet of industrial space under construction as of August, ranking eighth nationwide for space under construction, per CommercialSearch's reporting on the broader market. That construction pipeline accounted for 2.9 percent of Charlotte's inventory, compared with a 2.1 percent national average; when planned developments are included, Charlotte's pipeline rises to 5.2 percent of inventory, ranking fifth among top U.S. metros.
Charlotte's Industrial Growth Keeps Pushing South
The financing of Firetower 77 highlights how Charlotte's industrial growth keeps pushing southward into York County along the I-77 corridor. Rock Hill's immediate surroundings have already absorbed significant new supply, with almost a dozen projects totaling 1.3 million square feet brought online within five miles of central Rock Hill since January 2024, per CommercialSearch.
In the second quarter, Charlotte industrial asking rents averaged $8.67 per square foot and vacancy stood at 7.4 percent, according to CommercialCafe. Nationally, the average rent was $9.31 and vacancy was 9.3 percent in August. Current rates and limited availability of large spaces may push tenants toward renewing, the Charlotte Business Journal reported.
Competing Projects Crowd the Region
Firetower 77 isn't the only mega-warehouse chasing Charlotte-area demand. Beacon Partners broke ground in August on the 410,037-square-foot first phase of Rapid Commerce Park, a roughly 1.5 million-square-foot, 137-acre Class A project near Charlotte's international airport that is expected to come online in 2027, per CommercialSearch. Crescent Communities and GTIS Partners, meanwhile, purchased land this year for Axial Commerce Station, a two-building, 465,036-square-foot project along I-77 in Huntersville slated to reach completion by the end of 2026.
Rock Hill's industrial boom extends beyond warehouses alone. Texas-based Alliance Industrial broke ground on a roughly 197,000-square-foot speculative warehouse near I-77 in Rock Hill in March, Hoodline previously reported, marking the company's first Charlotte-area project. And this month, advanced manufacturer Re:Build Manufacturing announced a $20 million expansion in Rock Hill that will triple its local footprint to 130,000 square feet and add 150 jobs by 2028, a move Hoodline's reporting tied to the kind of local manufacturing growth that generates supply-chain demand supporting large-scale distribution facilities like Firetower 77.
McCraney's Broader Charlotte-Area Push
Firetower 77 is one piece of a wider expansion strategy for McCraney Property Company across Greater Charlotte. In March, the firm acquired nearly 55 acres near the Interstate 85 and Highway 73 interchange in Concord, North Carolina, to develop the Concord Gateway industrial park, a site aimed at light manufacturing, research and development, and distribution tenants, Hoodline reported at the time.
Co-developer AEW Capital Management brings significant institutional heft to the Firetower 77 partnership. The firm managed approximately $83.7 billion in global private real estate equity, debt and listed securities as of June 30, 2026, according to JLL; AEW Capital Management and AEW Europe are commonly owned by Natixis Investment Managers and operate independently. Together, McCraney and AEW are betting that national appetite for mega-scale bulk logistics space will outweigh the competitive leasing pressure building from inventory turnover and rival speculative projects across the region.
