A Garden City golf club has been closed since 2019. Will it be re-developed?
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When you stand on one of the tee boxes at the now-closed Indian Wells Golf Club in Garden City, you can still make out the course that once hosted golfers.
Despite the overgrowth of plants, greenery, and infrastructure ripped up, they now serve as bird perches. Cart paths, once paved, are slowly melting into black residue as the area returns to nature. The course still cuts through the trees like it did when Indian Wells was still open in 2019, and it is still possible to see where a golfer might have wanted to place their drive.
Now, in 2024, the golf course has been closed for years. Examining the property with Google Maps, which features photos as recent as April and January 2023 after the course closed in December 2019, shows the outline of the course remains, and its future remains less certain. Since closing in 2019, the former Founders Group International has remained undeveloped despite plans to develop it.
The Sun News reached out to Chris King, a public relations professional with Founders Group International, who said he was not aware of any development plans for the project.
According to Horry County Land Records, Founders Group International still owns the more than 150-acre property through its Founders IWGC LLC, which has the same business address as FGI. Indeed, before Indian Wells closed in 2019, FGI put forward its ideal plan for the property.
Initially introduced in December 2018, Founders Group presented a rezoning request plan to the Horry County Planning Commission, proposing to add 512 units of single-family homes and townhomes to the property. Despite being deferred multiple times, the Planning Commission voted to approve the plan at its April 4, 2019 meeting.
However, public backlash to the plan stalled the proposal with Horry County Council, which indefinitely deferred it at its June 18, 2019, meeting. Despite this, the lack of deferment doesn’t stop FGI from building on the now-closed course, as the property’s current zoning of SF6 allows for residential development aside from mobile homes.
In 2021, WMBF reported the course would add 488 units, but according to New Homes in Myrtle Beach, the plan remains to develop the property into a 513-unit development named Middlebrooke. It remains unclear if and when construction will start.
