Mayoral challengers take aim at Myrtle Beach development project

Three challengers looking to unseat Myrtle Beach Mayor John Rhodes deeply criticized on Wednesday a development project that he has championed this year.

The project would put a library and children’s museum, run by Columbia-based EdVenture, on multiple parcels downtown that the Downtown Redevelopment Corp. bought through a broker earlier this year. The DRC is a nonprofit arm of the City of Myrtle Beach.

But political candidates Ed Carey, Mark McBride and Brenda Bethune, at an event held by Myrtle Beach Republican Women Wednesday, argued the project was misguided.

McBride, a former mayor running for the seat again, argued the loan money used to buy the buildings was “supposed to actually be for economic development for others.”

Bethune, who owns a majority of beverage distributor Better Brands, Inc., told The Sun News she would rather place a new children’s museum near the convention center. She also said she was strongly opposed to tearing down the buildings, which the city would do if the complex moves forward in its current form.

Carey said the project should be scrapped altogether.

“The city needs to get out of private development today,” Carey said.

Rhodes was not at the event, which was rescheduled from its original date last week as Hurricane Irma approached the area. He said in a phone interview that the former owners of the downtown buildings that have been purchased were not reinvesting in the area themselves, and that the children’s museum would become a destination for visitors with kids.

“If [the land owners] thought that they could refurbish those buildings and there would be heavy traffic for them they could make a living on, you don’t think they would have done it?” Rhodes asked.

Carey, a construction consultant who helped build The Market Common, also said that the city was not transparent in how it went about buying the land, arguing that no public hearings were held on building a new library, where to put it or how to finance it.

Because the DRC was the buyer for the land, Myrtle Beach City Council did not hold public votes on the purchases, as it would have been required to if the city were buying the land outright. Many landowners also did not know officially who the buyer was until the city held a press conference on the project.

[Someone is buying superblock property. Email suggests it could be Myrtle Beach.]

[Myrtle Beach will bulldoze superblock for library and children’s museum]

City staff have said that using a broker was appropriate because buyers may inflate their asking prices when they know they are selling to a governmental body.

Rhodes said the DRC was the buyer for the buildings because they had access to a $10-million loan pool being used for downtown redevelopment.

“The DRC had the funds that they could do that with,” he said.

Rhodes also said EdVenture will take on the total cost of operating the new children’s museum.

However, the DRC has already paid more than $3 million out of its loan pool for the land. Myrtle Beach would need to find a way to pay for the demolition of the existing buildings, construction of the new building and the principle on the loan.

The city is also still has not acquired three parcels necessary to complete the project, and the city manager is authorized to use eminent domain for two of those parcels to force the owners to sell at market value.

Alternate proposals

The three challengers had varying ideas for what should happen to the superblock land.

C.D. Rozsa, the fifth candidate for mayor, was not at the Republican women’s event Wednesday afternoon.

He said via text message that the city should not have meddled with private businesses that were operating there.

But, he added, “The damage has already been done. Might as well build the museum and library.”

McBride, who has said he hopes to bring tech companies and start-ups to Myrtle Beach, said he would hold an event on Oct. 2 at Mary C. Canty Recreation Center to further explain his plans for the land and explain “how we’re going to use those buildings to drive economic development, not for some hoped-for tourist attraction.”

He said he was against pulling the structures down and hinted at a proposal to use them as business incubators, but declined to give more details before the unveiling.

Bethune said she also did not want to demolish the buildings, which are mostly located along 9th Avenue North and on Nance Plaza.

She said the city should pitch local developers and entrepreneurs on redeveloping the sites, and suggested businesses like a bowling alley or indoor market could occupy some of the storefronts.

She also said the children’s museum would be better located near the city’s convention center and sports complex. The city also owns that land, which is slated to be the site of a performing arts center and amphitheater that voters approved in a 2013 referendum.

“Locate the children’s museum over there so that you have synergistic things around it that can pull and draw from each other,” she said.

Carey, by contrast, said the site should be opened up to all kinds of private developers, and that it could yield a mixed-use project like a complex with retail on the bottom and condos on top.

He also suggested dissolving the DRC.

This story was originally published September 20, 2017 at 6:22 PM with the headline "Mayoral challengers take aim at Myrtle Beach development project."