Margaritaville hotel possible for Myrtle Beach

Myrtle Beach may be getting a Margaritaville Beach Hotel - the latest in Jimmy Buffett's brand endeavors, according to a company spokesman.  Margaritaville Management is considering Myrtle Beach as the site for a hotel, said Mike Stommel, a publicist for Margaritaville Management. 

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Ferris wheel gets Myrtle Beach CAB's OK

The Myrtle Beach Community Appearance Board likes the concept of the giant Ferris wheel complex proposed for Ocean Boulevard.  At Thursday's meeting, the board gave a conceptual review to the plans for the 5,400-square-foot building that will house a restaurant with a two-story deck, a retail shop, a gift shop and the SkyWheel ticket booth on the two .28-acre lots where the Golden Villas motels now stand at 1106 N. Ocean Blvd.  The board doesn't have approval over the wheel itself, because it's an amusement. But it does have to approve the support building and its look. 

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Hotel Outlook Improves After Stronger-Than-Expected First Quarter

CoStar - U.S. hotels should enjoy revenue growth the rest of this year, but it probably won't translate to the bottom line until next year, according to new lodging industry reports released this past week.  According to Smith Travel Research (STR), lodging demand in the first quarter of 2010 increased 5.3% compared with the first quarter of 2009. This is the largest quarterly increase in hotel demand since the second quarter of 1989.  Hotel transaction activity also appears to be thawing, although it still remains a fraction of what it was a couple of years ago, according to Jeff Myers, a real estate economist with CoStar Group, Inc. Through the first four months of the year, hotel sales volume was on pace to surpass 2009's total, and its proportion of overall commercial real estate investment activity has spiked.

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Hotel Appraisals Still Have Clout With Lenders, Survey Shows

NREI - Although hotel lenders always take appraisals with a grain of salt, a newly released survey of capital providers indicates that appraisals are still the biggest factor when determining market pricing for hotel properties — even though many appraisers do not have specific knowledge of the lodging industry.

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Myrtle Beach area real estate finds footing

Sun News - Grand Strand real estate sales rose and prices dropped at a slower rate in May, which Realtors say signals the potential for stability in the market.  Single-family home sales increased 25 percent in May from the same month last year, according to data gathered from the Multiple Listing Service. Condominium sales rose 11 percent in May when compared with the same month last year.  The median price of single-family homes dropped 5 percent last month when compared with May 2009 and condo prices dropped 1 percent.

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Ferris wheel may roll to Myrtle Beach

Sun News - There could be a big wheel in Myrtle Beach next summer - a really big wheel.  If St. Louis-based Pacific Development gets its way, it will build a 175-foot-tall SkyWheel Ferris wheel on the oceanfront just north of Plyler Park.  "We're really excited about the thing. It's big enough to be an iconic feature for the city," city manager Tom Leath said.  The wheel would be the largest east of the Mississippi in the U.S. and be just like the one on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, said Downtown Redevelopment Corp. Executive Director David Sebok. 

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