Former AVX headquarters building in Myrtle Beach being demolished

The last signs of AVX Corp. headquarters in Myrtle Beach will be gone by the end of April as crews work to demolish the electronics manufacturer’s complex on 17th Avenue South.

The AVX building will be demolished by the end of the month with the entire site cleared by the end of April, said Clint Kuzner, operations manager with C&H Environmental and Technical Services, the company doing the demolition. Work on the building’s demolition began in December.

AVX, which was found to have polluted groundwater near its 17th Avenue South operation, moved its world headquarters from Myrtle Beach to Greenville in 2009, shortly after the TCE pollution became a concern for Myrtle Beach politicians and residents. The company, which is publicly traded, makes ceramic capacitors that are used in the medical, automotive and consumer electronics industries.

Kurt Cummings, AVX’s chief financial officer and spokesman, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Myrtle Beach Mayor John Rhodes said he will be sad to see the AVX Corp. building go.

“I hate to see it go, especially because at one point they were the largest employer in Horry County,” Rhodes said. “Back in the old days it was that one of the best jobs you can get is with AVX.”

AVX agreed to a preliminary settlement in October to pay $1.2 million to the owners of 42 properties in Myrtle Beach where groundwater contaminated by the toxic degreaser trichloroethylene was discovered. Judge Larry Hyman approved the settlement in December. The agreement provided most landowners with $10,000-$15,000 apiece, depending on the size and condition of each property.

The settlement ends nearly all of the legal action that followed the disclosure in 2006 that AVX had polluted groundwater beyond its boundaries in Myrtle Beach. The last remaining issue is before the state Supreme Court, which has yet to rule on whether owners of property outside the contamination area can sue AVX because stigma from the nearby pollution has damaged their property values. The court heard arguments in that case in January.

AVX in 2011 settled a separate lawsuit with adjacent property owner Horry Land Co., which also claimed its property values had been ruined by the contamination. The terms of that settlement are confidential, but property records show AVX bought the 21.5-acre Horry Land site for $4.6 million.

A third contamination lawsuit — filed by a family that wanted to develop a condominium project near the manufacturer — ended in August 2013 when a jury awarded $750,000 to JDS Development. Both sides later agreed to vacate the judgment in favor of a confidential settlement.

Also in 2013, a federal appeals court upheld a lower court’s ruling in which AVX was found to be solely responsible for the groundwater contamination in Myrtle Beach, dismissing the manufacturer’s claims that the ruling was based on testimony from an unqualified expert witness. AVX had claimed some of the pollution might have come from the former Myrtle Beach Air Force Base, which is adjacent to the manufacturer, but Judge Terry Wooten said there is no evidence to support that claim.

This story was originally published March 27, 2015 at 8:12 PM with the headline "Former AVX headquarters building in Myrtle Beach being demolished."