Making way for Wal-Mart

Framing for the eighth Wal-Mart along the Grand Strand is rising in Garden City Beach, but don't get your shopping lists ready just yet.

The 155,147-square-foot store, under construction at the corner of U.S. 17 Business and the Garden City Connector, won't open until late summer or early fall 2011. It will be a Supercenter with a grocery, pharmacy, deli and optical departments, and when it opens, it will stay open around the clock, Wal-Mart spokesman Glen Wilkins said.

Work also has started on some road improvements around the site aiming to ease the traffic the store is expected to attract. Crews are widening the Garden City Connector and will lengthen the left-turn lane headed north on U.S. 17 Business onto the connector. A stoplight also will be added on the connector at the westernmost entrance to the store.

Wal-Mart is picking up the tab for the improvements, which county leaders say will make the traffic flow easier.

"People are obviously concerned with increased traffic in the area," said Andy Markunas, Horry County's deputy engineer.

Wal-Mart already has seven stores along the Grand Strand, including one off U.S. 501 near Carolina Forest that is less than a year old.

"I'd like to say that our customers really like Wal-Mart," Wilkins said. "It is a good relationship. We like to think we fit."

Some business owners near the Wal-Mart going up in Garden City Beach are excited about their new neighbor.

"It seems like it is coming along pretty quick," said Jamie McBride, owner of Back to the Garden nursery and landscaping business. "It is going to turn the area into more of a retail market. It is going to help all businesses. Hopefully, it will drive more people."

The store will have about 300 employees; hiring will start as the opening gets closer, Wilkins said.