Construction to connect South Carolina Highway 31 to North Carolina
Plans to extend Carolina Bays Parkway, also called SC 31, will connect Horry County, South Carolina into Brunswick County, North Carolina.
The proposed project will attempt to alleviate traffic but will also force dozens of homes and businesses to relocate, according to the North Carolina and South Carolina Departments of Transportation.
The project team has put out seven possible routes building a multi-lane highway to connect the existing SC 31 and SC 9 interchange in South Carolina to the US 17 Bypass in North Carolina.
The Federal Highway Administration, NCDOT and SCDOT chose Alternative Four as the preferred route because it would have the least impacts to natural resources, human environment, physical environment and projected costs. Because the project is still in the design phase, the route could still change.
The preferred route, Alternative Four, would force 34 residential relocations and 35 business relocations. The six other routes would require up to 261 residential, 51 business and five church relocations.
In all, the project is estimated to cost $797 million, roughly $186 million of which is in Horry County, South Carolina. However, Horry County lists the budget as $125,000,000.
“The RIDE 3 program has budgeted 125 million for the SC HWY 31 extension,” Horry County public information officer Kimberly Clifford said in an email. “Projects can come in on budget, over or under budget, so the county has planned for that and the RIDE 4 program contains a fund for RIDE 3 projects that exceed their budget. RIDE 3 and if needed RIDE 4 will cover the entire Horry County portion.”
In Horry County, more than $5 million in project expenditures have funded impact studies, reports and other preliminary items to inform project decisions so far.
“Horry County’s RIDE program is funding the project, but SCDOT is managing it and questions about residential and business relocations would be something they can help you with,” said Clifford.
To gather resident input, the project hosted one public meeting in Longs and plans to hold another in Sunset Beach on Oct. 23. Members of the public are also invited to share comments and questions until Nov. 21 by phone at (855) 925-2801 with code 7734, by email at Carolina-Bays-Pkwy@publicinput.com or online here.
Planners hope to release a final design by early 2026, according to a SCDOT spokesperson, but South Carolina construction isn’t slated to start until 2029.