Hundreds of Myrtle Beach visa workers could have a dorm-like residence. But opposition is strong
Bonnie Simmons stood on the front porch of her family home, fearful about what soon could be coming to Harlem — the historically Black Myrtle Beach neighborhood where she’s lived before a city grew in around it.
“I know people need places to live and stuff like that but we’ve been here in this community for so long and don’t know who’s coming or what’s going to happen when they get here,” Simmons, 75, said. “Everybody’s used to everybody already in the community.”
A city council vote is all that stands between the concerns of residents like Simmons and an ambitious proposal by private investors to build a walled-in campus between Mr. Joe White Avenue and Robert Grissom Parkway that would house international workers year-round.
Last spring, business leaders told The Sun News they hoped to retain Wisconsin-based Holtz Builders to construct a for-profit complex on 7.6 acres at the corner of the two busy intersections.
The property is a short distance from Ocean Boulevard and the boardwalk, where many international workers find employment.
More than 3,000 J-1 students get jobs in Horry County every year, according to U.S. Department of State data. The complex, which could open by 2025, would initially offer 380 beds, with plans to expand up to 3,000.
No public dollars are involved in the project, but opponents believe it’s an ill-conceived idea in the wrong part of Myrtle Beach.
“The main thing about it is, they want to develop their property to the hundredth degree, and the properties around it will suffer the consequences,” said Sylvester McCory.
Right now, his Nance Street home looks onto a tree-covered field. If the residence hall is built, that view will be replaced by a six-foot high masonry wall.
An April 4 planning commission meeting where the project was first discussed drew a standing-room-only crowd. Some people traveled from as far away as Baltimore to ensure they were counted among the opposition.
“If they’re coming to work, who they’re working for should be providing the living, not a whole place that could be used for something else for people that live here year-round,” Canal Street resident Chris Brown said April 13 from the backyard of his cousin Ross Brown’s home.
Robert Guyton, a local attorney representing the company, told the planning commission that investors were careful when looking for a site.
“We chose this site intentionally. You have a lot of unsavory characters that congregate in that area that are doing a lot of things that aren’t compatible with that community,” he said.
The facility would operate like a college dormitory with supervision and a secure campus, and rents would come out of workers’ paychecks.
Area improvements would include privately funded stormwater improvements to alleviate existing drainage problems throughout the Harlem neighborhood, a 10-foot wide bicycle path and Coast RTA bus shelter accessible and open to the public.
Plans also call for turning improvements off Mr. Joe White Avenue, according to blueprints.
All that work would come on top of the more than $1.2 million worth of infrastructure repairs covered through federal Community Development Block Grant aid that city leaders have funneled into Harlem and its surrounding areas since 2019.
Just behind Simmons’ house at the end of Jackson Lane is Bathsheba Bowens Park and a tiny playground with crumpled plastic slides and swing sets.
Children weave between homes and through Harlem’s quiet streets. Although the Mary C. Canty Recreation Center sits at the top of Canal Street, people like Ross Brown say more attention is needed to ensure the park equipment is safe.
“Mostly everybody from here on down the road is family. Or mostly like family,” he said as he washed his car. “We got people struggling paying $1,200, 1,600 rent, wish they could build something cheaper, based on your income. We don’t need that in the neighborhood.
Helestine Graham, whose family has lived in the Harlem area for decades, hopes those opponents bring their concerns to the city council.
“We need to start here advocating for our community,” she said. “We had the pandemic, we’re coming out of the pandemic, we’re trying to do stuff, and then we get this.”