Wednesday

Grand Strand's first Publix opens to shoppers Wednesday

— Publix likes to make itself known when it opens its first store in a new market, so Tuesday at Coastal North Town Center on U.S. 17, the company’s divisional officials, local political, business and educational dignitaries gathered for a sneak preview of the store that’s to open to the public at 7 a.m. Wednesday. The nearly 50,0000-square-foot store includes enough items to keep shoppers busy for hours, and officials took the dignitaries on a tour of the store’s highlights. The Publix will be the latest in a line of new groceries to open along the Grand Strand, including a new Lowe’s Foods in Carolina Forest, a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market and a Fresh Market. Two more new groceries are in the works, one at Farrow Parkway and Fred Nash Boulevard and another at 82nd Parkway and Kings Highway. Publix plans to open its second area store in Pawleys Island during the first quarter of next year. “Competition is always good,” Chuck Roskovich, Charlotte division vice president for Publix, said at Tuesday’s festivities. The store will have 150 employees, and Roskovich said that the Publix chain has never laid off an employee in its 84-year history. Store hours are 7 a.m. to 10 p..m., seven days a week. During the preview ceremony, the store presented $500 checks to each of six North Myrtle Beach area schools: North Myrtle Beach middle and high schools, Ocean Drive Elementary, Riverside Elementary, Waterway Elementary and The Lord’s Children, a private elementary school.

Read more here: http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/2014/11/18/4612695/publix-set-to-open-at-7-am-wednesday.html#storylink=cpy

Timeshare tower under construction along the Myrtle Beach oceanfront moving toward summer debut

Sun News -- A timeshare tower that will be among the tallest along Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach has been topped off and plans to have the first guests check in during early July.  The 24-story Ocean 22 Hilton Grand Vacations Club, being built on the oceanfront near 22nd Avenue North, aims to get its certificate of occupancy in May, then open to the first guests in early July, said Patrick Lowe, partner in Strand Capital Group, the Myrtle Beach developer that partnered with Hilton Grand Vacations on the project. Crews will spend June moving in furniture, training staff and putting the finishing touches on the timeshare units readying for the opening.  A 10,400-square-foot preview center, where potential buyers can get more details, is set to open in February across Ocean Boulevard from the tower, Lowe said. Ocean 22 will be the first lodging tower to open along Ocean Boulevard since 2009, when the second tower at the Hampton Inn & Suites Oceanfront opened. Construction of new hotels stopped during the recession, and the market has tried to correct itself from the overbuilding. The new 220-unit timeshare tower will have a fitness center, indoor and outdoor pools and a kids play area.  Ocean 22 is one of three new lodging towers in the works for the oceanfront in Myrtle Beach. Work is getting ready to start on a 14-story Homewood Suites Oceanfront Resort & Conference Center at 1805 S. Ocean Blvd., which plans to open in spring 2016.  And another tower that plans to have an elevated pedestrian walkway over Ocean Boulevard at 17th Avenue North is working its way through the city's approval process. Virginia-based Buchanan Motels LLC has proposed the 23-floor, 252-unit oceanfront hotel, with an indoor water park and parking garage across the street.

Read more here: http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/2014/11/18/4612870/timeshare-tower-under-construction.html#storylink=cpy