Could North Myrtle Beach be getting a new oceanfront hotel?

Tourists could soon have another place to stay in North Myrtle Beach after City Council approved development of a new oceanfront hotel.

North Myrtle Beach officials voted 6-1 this week to amend the Prince Resort at Cherry Grove Pier planned development district to allow the northern, oceanfront portion of Prince Resort on Ocean Boulevard to be redeveloped into a Hampton Inn & Suites hotel.

Plans include development of a six-story building that would comprise of 127 one-bedroom units above a ground-level parking garage containing 135 spaces, 41 of which would be designated for public use.

“This is a great project,” Mayor Marilyn Hatley said. “It’s so much smaller than what was supposed to be built there.”

Prince Resort’s property owner was originally granted approval in 2004 to build a second or twin tower consisting of 170 units in an 18-story structure. The building would have had 34 studios, 17 one-bedroom units, 102 two-bedroom units and 17 three-bedroom units. Now, the property owner can abandon his original plans to build a smaller hotel, officials said.

While Hatley said the proposed project is a much better option for the community due to its smaller size, some residents disagreed stating that the addition of a new hotel would field more traffic, cut off access to the beach and wheelchair accessibility, increase flooding, limit parking and impede on programs that use the beach.

“I think it’s a terrible project. This piece of property is a bad place to put another hotel,” resident Tyler Watkins said. “We have a flooding issue at this exact location (and) we’re about to dump significant amounts of concrete, which will create more run-off which will flood this exact location even more.”

A new hotel would affect the residents who live in the area, tourists who travel on Ocean Boulevard and those who want to visit the pier, he said.

“We don’t own that property and we can’t stop it from being developed,” Councilman J.O. Baldwin said. “However, this is a better development than what could potentially be done on that spot.”

Traffic would have been much worse had the property owner moved forward with developing the original structure, Hatley said.

Resident Luther Sharp cited Cherry Grove as an ideal area due to its lack of hotels. A hotel would make it difficult for residents to live and travel, he said, adding how residents also have been burdened with cleaning portions of the beach littered by tourists.

Councilwoman Nikki Fontana, who cast the dissenting vote, said she originally was going to vote in support of the project until residents started coming forward. She felt the new hotel could impact those who use that portion of the beach, specifically the Adaptive Surf Program, a local program that provides disabled surfers with opportunities on the water.

“That area is one of the last spots in North Myrtle Beach near the pier to surf,” Fontana said. “It’s hard when it comes to things like this. Before Monday, nobody came to us about this.”

Despite council’s approval, city spokesperson Pat Dowling said the property owner still needs to go through the normal building permit process and review for the actual structures themselves before construction can begin.

This story was originally published March 20, 2019 at 10:24 AM.