Wrangle over Heritage Tower may go to court

ROCK HILL, S.C. — Owners of the Heritage Tower, once part of the Charlotte, N.C.-based PTL empire of evangelist Jim Bakker, said Monday they are still a few months away from beginning a planned restoration of their 21-story building in Fort Mill.

Butt York County officials said they haven’t been informed of any such plans. The building’s owners, Heritage International Ministries, “will be in violation of the rezoning ordinance on Thursday,” county Planning Director Susan Britt said.

That means the building’s owners could be subject to fines and summoned to appear before a magistrate to explain themselves, Britt said.

The building was left unfinished in the late 1980s when Bakker’s ministry collapsed in sex and money scandals.

MorningStar Ministries, which owns Heritage, said Monday it intends to make the building into a retirement center.

“We would like to make it not only the tallest building in the area, but the most beautiful as well, and a major asset to the whole community,” MorningStar founder Rick Joyner said in an a statement. “We certainly did not want to take any shortcuts on something like this.”

Joyner said engineers and architects have done extensive tests on the building and they have found that it “remains in remarkably good structural shape,” except for its crumbling brick facade.

“We have also devised a plan that will enable us to bring the building up to the highest seismic standards while actually increasing its value,” Joyner said.

Britt said her office was involved in discussions with the building’s owners for several months, and that they were told in September that county deadlines loomed.

“They’d have to file an injunction with the court,” to avoid the fines or further action by the county, Britt said.

Britt said there are two separate issues involved in the matter.

First, the owners agreed in 2005 to demolish the Heritage Tower, which was a condition for a rezoning request that was approved by the county. It is that deadline that expires this week, Britt said.

A second issue stems from the fact that the county wants a structural engineer to verify whether any plans for the building would be sufficient for its intended use. The building was declared unsafe by her department in 1999, Britt said.

The tower was begun under older building codes and lacks a reinforcing steel structure on the inside.

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