Beach View Apartments tenants search for housing to make way for new oceanfront Hilton timeshare
Residents of Beach View Apartments are searching for a new place to live after receiving a letter July 1 telling them they had until July 31 to vacate the property because it had been sold and was being demolished.
Developers are planning to build a 22-story, 230 unit timeshare property, to be called Hilton Grand Vacations Club, in its place.
The apartments, in the 2200 block of North Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach, include a seven-story and nine-story tower on the east side of Ocean Boulevard and a third two-story building on the west side.
Representatives from Crystal Blue Investment Group and Strand Capital Group, which both are working to bring the timeshare property to the Beach Village location, could not be reached for comment Thursday. Representatives from Hilton Hotels & Resorts also could not be reached.
“The whole place is full and they’ve given everyone 30 days to find a new place to live,” Beach View resident Daniel Coates said last week. He said there likely are more than 100 units at Beach View.
Developers presented an application to the city on May 23 outlining plans to bring the towers down in August and begin building the timeshare property in September, according to city planner Allison Hardin.
Some long-time residents have threatened to stay despite being told in the July 1 letter that there would be no more utility service after July 31, said tenant Angela Simonelli. She said she moved into a studio apartment at Beach View on June 9 for which she’s been paying $250 a week in rent.
Simonelli said she, her husband and her 5-year-old daughter had stayed temporarily at a number of hotels in the past several months while searching for an apartment.
“We’ve been looking for a permanent apartment this whole time, so when I found this place I was like, ‘Oh this is great. It’s an apartment, not a hotel,’ ” she said. “Now we have to find somewhere else to live.”
Residents who spoke with The Sun News said they were frustrated to be given only 30 days to search for new housing during the busy summer season.
“It’s hard to find a place,” Debbie Eudy said Thursday morning as she and Joe Harper packed and loaded their things onto a moving truck. “Especially in July. Especially when all of the foreign students are here taking up all of the housing. A lot of places will be available in September but we don’t have until September.”
Jeff King with Crystal Blue told the city Tuesday they hoped to begin demolition on the existing towers located at 2200 and 2202 N. Ocean Blvd. on Aug. 1, and begin construction on Sept. 1.
The developers will “relocate” two 20-foot alleys for the project –moving the alley between the two Beach Villa towers on the ocean side of North Ocean Boulevard to the south to create a 40-foot alley between Schooner II and what will be the Hilton; and a second on the west side of North Ocean Boulevard between another Beach Villa building and its parking lot to the north.
The Planning Commission will have a public meeting at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday regarding the alleyway swap in the first-floor conference room of City Hall, 937 Broadway St. The meeting will begin with a presentation on a different topic that is expected to last 15 to 30 minutes, Hardin said.
The timeshare is the third new lodging establishment proposed for Myrtle Beach this year, after no new hotels were built in the city since 2009, when construction stopped during the Great Recession.
Eudy and Harper, who have lived at Beach View for about three months, will move to a place on the north end of Myrtle Beach.
“I was worried, but I wasn’t worried,” she said of finding a new place to live within 10 days. “I knew the Lord would take care of us.”
This story was originally published July 11, 2013 at 5:27 PM with the headline "Beach View Apartments tenants search for housing to make way for new oceanfront Hilton timeshare."