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Families cruise the peninsula in golf carts and stroll along lakeside trails with their dogs.

Neighbors rely on each other to help fix leaky pipes.

Voters like their government small, and their churches big.

That’s the Tega Cay where Mayor Chris Gray said he chose to raise his family, and he wants to keep it that way.

“We’re not just a city. We’re family,” Gray said. “If your kid screws up, you’re gonna know before he gets home. That’s the way everybody lives.”

The city is regularly hailed as one of the best places to live in South Carolina. Crime is low. Schools are excellent. Median household income is about $141,000, which is much higher than the national median and double the state’s.

But expansion has fostered a cultural disconnect between longtime residents and newer transplants, Gray said, threatening the fabric of what makes Tega Cay, Tega Cay. He said he feared that a generation from now, his idyllic slice of small-town Americana could be lost if efforts aren’t made to preserve it.

That’s why he’s bridging the gap.

A central promise during Gray’s 2021 campaign was a live-work-play area where residents old and new could gather. He called it Main Street, and his vision is already coming into focus through a $250-$300 million project detailed last fall. The city plans to break ground on the Main Street project this spring.

The city’s demographics might appear one way on paper, but differences are more nuanced than statistics can show.

Tega Cay is unofficially divided into two areas. On one side, the peninsula jutting into Lake Wylie is home to older lakefront properties and is the original part of the city. Locals call this area “historic” or “old Tega Cay.” It’s almost exclusively composed of single-family residences.

“New Tega Cay” is located off the peninsula along Highway 160 on land the city annexed after the turn of the century. This area features a mixture of single-family homes, commercial districts and larger developments that attract multicultural newcomers.

Gray has lived in both parts of the city. He’s always enjoyed his neighbors, he said, and it’s not a matter of good or bad people. Old Tega Cay just has an added charm.

Characters he calls the “Tega Cay crazies” spread cheer through little acts on the peninsula, like the “hippy” man who wears tie-dye and passes out ice cream from his golf cart, or the group of octogenarians known as the 80’s ladies who hit the dance floor during the Shore Club’s cocktail hour. Residents are more involved in community groups, too, like the Lion’s Club and the Moms Club.

These quirks and passions haven’t yet translated over for lack of a shared community space.

“Nobody on the new side knew what Tega Cay was about,” Gray said.

The Tega Cay Golf Club serves as a social center for the peninsula. New Tega Cay has Catawba Park, a 62-acre recreation area that opened in 2022 and has had some success in bringing people together.

But neither is the sort of hub the city wants in its Main Street project.

The concept is a new road lined with shops and apartments where families can go for a stroll, grab a bite to eat or browse local businesses. Main Street will add 100,000 square feet of commercial space on a 56-acre spot between Stonecrest Boulevard and Dam Road. There will be more housing for new residents, too, with 225 apartments above retail units and 150 homes or townhomes.

“I wonder what they feel their linkage is to historic Tega Cay. Do they have the affiliation or the same feelings that the people on the peninsula have, being outside the central area?” former Mayor Steve Hamilton said of New Tega Cay. “(Main Street) is gonna definitely tie the community together.”

Tega Cay was a gated community in unincorporated York County before residents voted in 1982 to become a city. For nearly two decades after that, it kept to the peninsula.

Hamilton was mayor when the city annexed its first land off the peninsula in 2001 in a “monumental decision” he said was necessary to control the city’s destiny and decide how they could grow while preserving their way of life.

The community was not thrilled at the prospect.

“Some of the folks felt that just keeping the little tight-knit area in Tega Cay would protect us from outside influences, but my thought pattern was that if we don’t annex those areas outside historical Tega Cay, then the county would decide what was going to go there,” said Hamilton, who attributes his failed 2004 re-election campaign to annexation.

Ron Kirby, who was on city council for subsequent annexations, said he earned the nickname “annex king” from displeased residents. He credits expansion for sinking his re-election bid, too, but he still stands behind his votes. There would be no room for Main Street today if not for those decisions.

“That area’s just the new kid in school. It takes time,” Kirby said. “Maybe original Tega Cay has not done enough welcoming.”

He said the city also earned flack for cutting down trees while developing annexed land in the 2000s because trees play an important part in Tega Cay’s identity and aesthetic, but Kirby said they were cleared for fire safety reasons. Trees are cleared with less push back in new Tega Cay today, he said.

“Like everybody else, I want us to maintain what I moved there for. I don’t want us to cut grass, I want us to mow lawns. I want us to have people talking about, when they drive through, just how gorgeous it is,” Kirby said. “Some of that has been lost through the years.”

The city hasn’t announced the names of specific businesses yet. Officials involved with the project have floated general ideas like ice cream shops, wine bars, coffee shops and an amphitheater, with a mixture of national chains and local businesses.

The area will include ample parking and outdoor spaces, Charlotte Living Realty owner Paul Sagadin told city council during a November meeting. There will be space for gathering, too, with fire pits, picnic tables, playgrounds and cornhole boards.

Former city councilman Gus Matchunis is volunteering on the city’s economic development commission because he wants to see Main Street through to completion with the right mixture of commercial development, he said.

“People there deserve to not have to drive to Charlotte for a nice meal or shopping or an entertainment destination,” said Matchunis, who has lived on both sides of the city since moving to Tega Cay in 1997. “It’ll be a lively place with lots of open space.”

The project will be split into three sections. A mixed-use section on the northwest side, just south of Walmart, will have a food hall and brewery with a rooftop bar and restaurants, Matchunis said. The city plans to break ground on this section this spring and expects to wrap by early next year.

A northeast section will follow with apartments, retail space and a large thoroughfare. This section should be completed by late 2028, with apartments opening to residents by spring 2027.

The third section in the south will have new homes.

This story was originally published February 10, 2025 at 6:00 AM.

The Herald

Nick Sullivan is The Observer’s regional accountability reporter for York County and the South Carolina communities that border Charlotte. He studied journalism at the University of South Carolina, and he previously covered education for The Arizona Republic and The Colorado Springs Gazette.