Millions in Horry County tax breaks are headed to this design firm. More jobs are coming

Skutchi Designs, a leading office furniture firm that opened an expanded facility in the Ascott Valley Industrial Park on Adrian Highway earlier this year, won a 20-year property tax break as part of an incentive package to keep the company local.

The company left its Conway site off Gardner Lacy Road for a larger building in the Ascott Valley Industrial Park earlier this year — bringing 18 employees with a future goal of 41 more.

“Horry County really wants to push development of this area, and understandably so,” said company marketing director Timothy Smith.

Skutchi spent $2.7 million to double the size of its warehouse a sign of its faith in Horry County’s growing economic versatility, Smith said.

“On my drive in from work I must pass a dozen new housing projects going in here, there, everywhere. Everybody’s building homes,” he said. “A lot of folks of up north are coming down, a lot of folks from down south are coming north, I think it’s fantastic there’s some foresight on the party of county government that they’re going, ‘we need to be ready for this.’”

Skutchi isn’t the only local company that announced an expansion into the industrial park. Carolina Refractories Inc. said in November it would build a 30,000-square-foot facility there to bolster it operations — a $3.7 million venture that would create 38 jobs through 2028.