Pelicans baseball’s move downtown projected in Myrtle Beach SC funding request. What else?
The City of Myrtle Beach is set to receive $10 million in state funding to aid its major downtown redevelopment efforts through annual budget earmarks.
The funds are coming in separate $5 million appropriations through the House via request sponsored by Rep. Case Brittain and Senate via request sponsored by Sens. Luke Rankin and Stephen Goldfinch, according to South Carolina earmark documents.
The first $5 million will be dedicated toward offsetting the costs of ongoing infrastructure projects, which are expected to cost the city about $32 million, according to assistant city manager Brian Tucker. The other $5 million will be set aside to go toward a planned technology company incubator as part of Myrtle Beach’s efforts to diversify its economy, Tucker said.
While the $10 million represents the most funding any city received through earmarks in this year’s budget, Myrtle Beach was actually seeking $75 million, underscoring the ambitiousness of officials’ yearslong redevelopment endeavor.
City officials say many final decisions on how to move forward in those efforts remain in flux, but documents submitted to state legislators as part of their funding request offer a glimpse into their ultimate vision.
“I think we recognize ... this is a one-time opportunity to get this right,” Tucker said. “We want to make sure the design is right, the mix of uses is right.”
Here are three main takeaways about that vision:
The Pelicans baseball team moving downtown is on the table
The future of the Myrtle Beach Pelicans remains unclear as deadlines loom for stadium upgrades required by Minor League Baseball.
A series of one-year lease extensions have kept the Chicago Cubs affiliate on 21st Avenue North, at TicketReturn.com Field — co-owned by the city and Horry County — but that lease expires after this season and renovations to the stadium that could cost more than $50 million need to be planned by the start of the 2025 season.
Myrtle Beach officials have discussed making those upgrades — reportedly the preference of Pelicans’ leadership — as recently as May, according to the Post & Courier, but no commitment has been made.
Rumors have persisted that the city could opt to build a new stadium to move the team downtown, though comments by officials made to The Sun News in April made that prospect seem unlikely.
But documents submitted to state legislators show a multi-purpose stadium venue — shaped like a baseball field in renderings — is a strong consideration to anchor the city’s East of Kings redevelopment.
That area, encompassing land east of Kings Highway between 7th Avenue N. and 9th Avenue N., includes several properties the city has purchased in recent years as well as the former site of the Myrtle Beach Pavilion, owned by Burroughs and Chapin.
Documents submitted as part of the city’s state funding request show “Option 1” includes a multi-purpose venue with a 6,000-10,000 seat capacity along 7th Avenue N. along with an oceanfront hotel, various mixed-use buildings and nearly doubling the current parking capacity to more than 5,500 spaces within a five-minute walk of the potential stadium.
Tucker confirmed the Pelicans would be moved to this complex in that scenario, but city officials will only move forward with this option if the venue can be designed in a way that it can be used year-round by also hosting concerts, festivals and different sporting events.
“That’s a very particular design to accommodate for all those different uses,” Tucker said. “Candidly, we’re not even sure that’s possible.”
Tucker told The Sun News that other options city officials have been presented — not shown in documents submitted to state legislators — included constructing the stadium along 9th Avenue N. instead, having a different anchor such as an amphitheater or museum, or having no anchor at all.
“Our proposal would be once the vision gels and we all feel comfortable with what the path forward needs to be, we’d go solicit a master private developer that would come in and coordinate the private development piece of the puzzle,” Tucker said. But we don’t necessarily want to go that route until there’s consensus on what the vision needs to be.”
Myrtle Beach Mayor Brenda Bethune told The Sun News that city officials and Burroughs and Chapin have been working with architectural firm Gensler as master planner for the project for about three or four months. No master plan has been finalized though, and Bethune declined to say what use of the properties she’d support because she hasn’t seen all the options.
Neither the chairman of the Pelicans, nor a spokesperson for Burroughs and Chapin responded to a request for an interview.
A tech company incubator is central to downtown redevelopment efforts
Bethune’s letter to state legislative leaders included in the city’s funding request is headed: “Myrtle Beach — The New Economy, South Carolina’s Next Downtown & Tech Hub.”
She goes on to highlight the city’s creation of an Office of Innovation, attracting D.C. Blox to build its data center in the city and initiating a “Living Lab” concept that “will position Myrtle Beach to be the epicenter for a new digital economy.”
The lab, as described in a presentation to city council last August, would be a three-floor complex within the Arts & Innovation District that includes a mix of public and private lab spaces where tech companies and higher education students and faculty could research, build and test innovations with the support of city officials.
City officials projected the project would cost about $18 million, and they had hoped receive a $12 million federal grant to support it, but that effort hasn’t yet been successful. The proposed location would be on vacant city-owned property along Oak Street along 9th Avenue N. and Mr. Joe White Avenue, according to Tucker.
Both Tucker and Bethune said they believe the living lab is a major part of the overall vision for downtown redevelopment, though it will likely be at least two and half years to design and build the structure once funding is secured, Tucker said.
The city’s lab concept would be comparable to the “Curiosity Lab” already in place at Peachtree Corners, Georgia, though Tucker said he believes Myrtle Beach wants to be more involved as a partner with companies in terms of testing and vetting innovations.
Myrtle Beach anticipates a lot of money invested in its new downtown
Bethune wrote in her letter to state legislators that local entities have already committed nearly $100 million toward downtown redevelopment efforts during the past five years, including city spending of about $31 million to buy blighted properties east of Kings Highway and more than $22 million committed to renovate a downtown theater.
During the next 15 years, city officials anticipate nearly $1 billion invested in these projects, including $200 million in public funds and $800 million in private investments, Bethune wrote.
Tucker said that $200 million public investment projection would be if the city decides to move forward with the multi-use entertainment venue that would host the Pelicans.
Whenever the vision is finalized, Tucker said city officials are confident the private investment will come.
“It’s the same thing we’ve said all along: these parcels are in the middle of one of the largest tourism cities in the country ... along the Atlantic Ocean,” he said. “Private developers are paying very close attention to what we’re doing, and we’re getting fairly regular inquiries.”
Bethune wrote that city officials project a return of more than $1 billion in public funds from the redevelopment for the city, county, state and school district.
“But the true economic impact will be much greater,” Bethune concluded in her letter.
