A report provided to Myrtle Beach from a consultant group said portions of the city give off the perception of crime.
“It sends a bad message. It’s bad advertising,” said David Sebok.
Sebok is the Executive Director for the Downtown Redevelopment Corporation.
He says city officials have been aware of the dilapidated portion of town for some time.
The area the consultant group researched is called the South Mixed Use Area.
It stretches from 7th Avenue North to 1st Avenue North and is bordered by Kings Highway and the ocean front.
Sebok says the process of dilapidation took awhile to occur.
“It’s like cancer. It slowly spreads and pretty soon you have one block that doesn’t work,” he said.
However, even though city officials say they have been aware of the issue there has been no change.
“There is only so much you can do and that area has hundreds, and hundreds of different property owners and business owners,” said Sebok.
Change will be expensive.
But now the city says it is ready to start spending.
“Encourage redevelopment of that area which needs investment,” said John Pedersen.
Pedersen is the city manager for Myrtle Beach.
He says first the city needed to diagnose the problem and now they are ready to take action.
“The whole thing is about cleaning up some of the run down properties and some of the perception that is out there,” said Pedersen.
Sebok says from there the hope is to get investors to take a chance on the area; which a majority of is ocean front property.
He says just as blight and dilapidation slowly spread through the downtown over the years, new investment can jump start redevelopment in the same way.
Sebok says the city does not plan to wait around for that catalyst and are taking action now.
On March 18th a community clean up is planned.
Pedersen also says the city will focus more on code enforcement; which could lead to the city repossessing dilapidated property.
