LITTLE RIVER — A former Little River golf course will be converted into a retail center — and possibly a grocery store.
The BWS Company, a Charleston-based land investor and developer, acquired the 45-acre Harbour View Par 3 golf course along U.S. Highway 17 in April. The company sold 37 acres to Horry County Schools for just under $6 million, and the remaining frontage property on the highway will be used for commercial projects.
“Part of what we’re doing is trying to leave things better than we found them,” said Thompson Whitney Blake of BWS, referring to the school district deal. “It’s important for us to do well and do good.”
The HCS property will likely become a school site, though no plans have been drafted yet, school district spokeswoman Lisa Bourcier said.
Most of the public schools in the North Myrtle Beach area are crowded. All but one will be over 100 percent of their functional capacity by the next academic year, according to Horry County planning records. The lone school below 100 percent — Ocean Drive Elementary School — is projected to be at 96 percent capacity.
Overgrowth partially blocks the sign for the shuttered Harbour View driving range along U.S. Highway 17 in Little River. Horry County Schools has acquired about 37 acres of the former golf course, and the frontage portion is expected to become a retail center.
Charles D. Perry/Staff
Retail needed to serve a growing population
Spanning more than 8 acres, the frontage property will become a retail center, Blake said, though no formal plans have been filed with the Horry County Government.
BWS is considering several sets of plans for the property, ranging from a five-tenant retail complex to one with an anchoring grocery store.
“All of them are exciting,” Blake said, adding the company is still determining which mix works best for the site. “We’re talking to a ton of people. … I see a lot of healthy demand there.”
With the population growth in the North Strand region, which extends from North Myrtle Beach into Calabash, N.C., BWS is seeking to bring needed commercial space.
“The North Strand corridor between North Myrtle Beach and Calabash is one of the more desirable stretches of coastal Carolina, and Highway 17 frontage of this caliber rarely comes available,” said Jason Byham, a partner at BWS, in a prepared statement. “We’re seeing strong demand from national retailers who recognize that rooftop growth in this market has outpaced the commercial infrastructure serving it, and (the golf course) lets us deliver something the community actually needs on a property that’s been underutilized for years.”
Focusing on the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida, the BWS portfolio includes a variety of Southeastern developments ranging from smaller commercial centers to major residential projects that span thousands of acres. Those include Carolina Park and Stonoview in Charleston County, and Brunswick Plantation and Pine Lakes in Brunswick County, N.C.