SC: State committee sees Carolina Bays Parkway up close

The committee that is deciding on which application or applications will receive the $300 million in funding from the South Carolina Infrastructure Bank visited Myrtle Beach last week to see the desired project. See article.

Horry County Officials applied for $150 million in early January to extend the Carolina Bays Parkway (SC 31) another 1.5 miles to SC 707 then to widen SC 707 to five lanes to the US 17 Bypass. This will essentially complete the Carolina Bays Parkway. The parkway was origianlly planned to curl back towards US 17, but the county never bought the land and developers have already built over the proposed right of way.

A few new details also came out in the article. The state only owns 75 feet of right of way along SC 707 and would need 110 feet. A number of homes may possibly have to be taken for this project. The board was very inquisitive including asking about mass transit. Finally, the chairman of the bank board, Don Leonard, is a business owner from Myrtle Beach.

The bank's board also went to Charleston to gather information about their requested projects.

Commentary:

From the article, I finally learned why the link to SC 707 is called the last piece of the Parkway. It was always to go to US 17, but I was not aware of the developments that led to the highway to be truncated at SC 707 vs. US 17 Bypass. This is like I-540 in Raleigh, NC where many developments were built with the I-540 Right-of-way kept in mind.

Going back to that, I am rather surprised that the state and the county did not purchase the right-of-way for the SC 707 to US 17 link.

With the bank's board visiting the other projects this month. A decision will be announced soon.

Comments

tompass said…

The question is now how will Osprey Plantation lot owners be affected by sudden change of plans to run 31 through center of that development?

5:44 PM

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