It’s been 10 years since the of Myrtle Beach first began to discuss the plan for a performing arts center and now due to lack of funding for the plan and a new city council, the project has been put on hold.
Special Projects Coordinator, Ron Andrews said the initial operational cost of the performing arts center alone was 8 million dollars.
“So that only left two to build the amphitheater and that’s why we were short on funding and we couldn’t find the funding to do that.” Andrews said. “It’s not just about finding the money to build, but finding the money to operate.”
He says that council previously voted not to raise taxes, but instead to find a company to help build and operate the facilities. But, he said nothing was working and now if they want to go forward they would have to start from scratch.
“All the work we’ve done now has age to it, the design by the architect and the builders are now two years old, none of those prices would be good.” Andrews said.
City Manager, John Pederson said this project was one that was temporarily put aside before the election, among others.
“Those were projects that we talked to the previous council about but we put those plans on hold until after the election until we have the chance to see if it’s consistent with what this council wants to do.” Pederson said.
He said there’s been a discussion with the Downtown Redevelopment Corporation about putting an amphitheater in the superblock but that this would be considered a different project.
“The first detail we would need to work out is to get an estimate of the cost so on Thursday I am expecting the DRC to consider a proposal to hire an architect to give us an estimate of that. Not to give us a final design or anything like that, we aren’t close to anything like that.” Pederson said.
