Live/Works & Big Business hit Myrtle Beach

A walk around the former Myrtle Beach Air Force Base shows a small city rising out of the ground as steel beams push into the sky. The Market Common, an urban village with 600,000 square feet of retail will open April 3, 2008. It will offer a walkable shopping and living environment with restaurants, parks, a grocery store and movie theater. Condos and townhomes will surround the village, allowing residents to never have to set foot in a car to shop or eat.

Investors, second-home buyers and even locals looking for something different are purchasing the 580 condominiums and 905 townhomes surrounding the retail village. But renters shouldn't feel left out. Above all the high-end retail will be 195 one- and two-bedroom apartments. Those will start renting in April when the village introduces itself to Myrtle Beach.

About 70 percent of the retail space is leased, and the developer is currently negotiating 27 more leases. If all those sign on the dotted line, Market Common will be nearly full, with just over 90 percent of the space leased.

Construction has begun on Tommy Bahama and will start soon for the movie theater, P.F. Chang's and the upscale Piggly Wiggly grocery store. Already construction shows the outline of a village with a Main Street and a public center. Construction on the three floors of apartments has also begun on the main retail strip. About 25 percent of the construction is complete.

Brick residential townhomes will surround Market Common. The first 25 carriage townhomes are already being built and should be ready for homeowners to move in by September, and more phases are coming. Buyers can choose from a live/work townhome, which offers office or retail space on the bottom with two floors of living space above, or two-story, residential-only townhomes. Live/work townhomes start at $345,000 and carriage homes from the $250,000s. There are also three-story row homes priced from the $250,000s.

Market Common will also have an office building on its edge, close to the Coastal Carolinas Association of Realtors building, with about 13,000 square feet of space per its three floors, which will be ready for occupancy in May.

Tenants planned for The Market Common include Anthropologie, Aveda Modern Salon & Day Spa, Banana Republic, Barnes & Noble, Brooks Brothers, Carlyle & Company, Chico's, Claddagh Irish Pub, Cold Stone Creamery, Coldwater Creek, Consolidated Theatres, Copper Penny Shooz, Divine Steakhouse, Francesca's Collection, Gordon Biersch Brewery, Luxottica Collection, Orvis Sporting Traditions, P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Piggly Wiggly, Planet Beach Tan, Pottery Barn, Sigrid Olsen soma by Chico's, Sunglasses Hut, The Wine Room, Tommy Bahama Restaurant and Store, White House | Black Market and Williams-Sonoma.

Contact Price & Company Realty for more details on this exciting development!