City of Myrtle Beach to vote on downtown master plan

MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WMBF) - After months of research, city meetings, and public workshops, Benchmark, a consulting agency the city has been working with, came up with a master plan for the downtown area of Myrtle Beach.

"The next step is to have city council adopt that plan,” said Lauren Clever, Director of the Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corporation. "Then that gives the city manager the opportunity to move forward with some of those implantation plans and ideas to get the ball rolling. The plan came out and it looks great and it's wonderful and there are a bunch of pretty pictures but there are things that need to be done to make sure these things could happen."

Some of the projects in the plan are simple like beautification projects. One idea is to enhance the waterfront area by adding new restaurants and attractions. The city discussed possibly creating a tax increment financing district to fund this. Other ideas are more difficult like relocating streets.

"It piggy backs on the realignment on 501 that is coming in a couple of years. It creates an open park space around which some of these projects could be built so we can have a public space for events and activities, maybe a farmers market, right in the heart of that area,” said Mark Kruea City Spokesperson of Myrtle Beach.

As for funding for these projects, there isn’t a concrete plan yet.

"We've built up expectations and I think the public is excited about the prospects of this,” said Kruea. Now, the city council has the tough job of figuring out which project to start with and how to pay with those projects.”

The city will vote if they want to adopt this master plan at their next meeting on March 12.

Copyright 2019 WMBF. All rights reserved.