MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – This week marks ten years since construction of The Market Common area began. The old air force base has grown into what some consider a small town where people work, live, and play.
City leaders say they knew they had great plans for the area, but they never expected that it would boom quite like it’s done.
Phil Pecora says he knew the area had potential, and that’s why he invested nearly 20 years ago.
“It was scary. It was literally scary because there was nobody in here,” laughed Pecora.
Pecora owns Toffino’s Italian Bakery & Deli in The Market Common, and he says now business is booming.
“I don’t know that anybody expected it to boom as fast as it did. I think they had more of a twenty year plan, but in ten years, they’ve achieved phenomenal growth,” said City Myrtle Beach Planning Director Carol Coleman.
Coleman says they don’t plan for the growth to stop there.
“There’s still development to go out there, I mean believe it or not. Everything’s going gangbusters. Almost every area that’s available is under development or has development associated with it,” said Coleman.
Pecora says he’s been there for the development since day one, and as areas around his business are next in line for construction, he sees a major problem.
“The total number of parking spaces just keeps going down, and everybody keeps telling me ‘yeah, we have a parking issue’, but nobody is really doing anything about it,” said Pecora.
City leaders say the area has become a prime location for locals, and that’s why developers want to add 50 more single family homes, but Pecora says that will take away even more parking.
“Once those parcels are developed, then we definitely will have to look at some other options for creating parking areas outside of the downtown proper,” said Coleman.
The proposal to add the new homes is an amendment to the master plan for The Market Common. Myrtle Beach City Council will have a second reading on those plans at their next meeting.
