Myrtle Beach Boardwalk $3.7M renovations near completion

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WMBF) - The $3.7 million renovations on the Myrtle Beach Boardwalk are almost complete.

Crews installed new and more durable deck boards to replace the original southern yellow pine that was over 10 years old. They also added new rails, stiles, inlaid nautical flags and two new selfie stations.

“The reaction from people who have seen the boardwalk in person has been very good,” said Myrtle Beach Spokesperson Mark Kruea. “They look at it and say, ‘wow, this looks great.’ We had a little hesitation at first about the multicolors, but it’s been well received so far.”

Two additional selfie stations will be added in the next couple of weeks.

“I really like it,” said Rosemary Walton, a bartender at Hurricanes located on the boardwalk. “I love what they put over here. That and the little sandcastle. It’s just a nice little touch for it being a tourist’s area and you know technology is a big thing now so people like to take the Instagram pictures, so definitely I can see that happening a lot.”

For some Myrtle Beach residents, they’re happy to not have to trip over loose panelboards anymore.

“You’d be walking and suddenly you’d be like, ‘oops,’” said Nicole Poirier, pretending to trip.

Poirior takes a 2.5-mile walk on the boardwalk every day.

“And then they started working on it and they’re doing it really quickly and now I don’t have to trip over anything,” said Poirier.

Renovating the boardwalk has been on the drawing board for Myrtle beach for the past three years. Kruea says that Covid and supply and demand issues have interfered with the timeline.

There has not been an exact date set on when the boardwalk will be complete, but Kruea says it’s almost finished.

The City of Myrtle Beach is also currently shopping for new benches so beach-goers will have somewhere to sit on the boardwalk.

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