A $90 Million Margaritaville Resort Is Coming to Myrtle Beach. Here’s What Locals Should Watch Before the Final Vote.

Posted Wednesday, November 11, 2026 8:41 am

David Hucks (via MyrtleBeachSC)

City Council’s first vote clears the way for an 18-story, 296-room resort with a lazy river and waterslides at 17th Avenue North. The final vote, and what the public gets out of the deal, still have to be settled.

Nov 11, 2026 · @David · Myrtle Beach News https://x.com/myrtlebeachnews

Jimmy Buffett’s brand first showed up in plans for downtown Myrtle Beach nearly three years ago. This week the developer finally put a price on it. On Nov. 10, Jason Nicholson, development division manager for Innisfree Hotels, told City Council that his company plans to put $90 Million Margaritaville Resort into building the resort from day one [Post and Courier, 2026]. Council then approved the first of two readings of an ordinance that would rework public alleyways around the site near Ocean Boulevard and 17th Avenue North [City of Myrtle Beach, 2026].

The dollar figure is only part of the story for Horry County residents. The deal hands city-owned land to a private developer. Council wants a list of public improvements attached, and none of them are locked in yet. The developer’s timeline also deserves a careful look, because recent Margaritaville projects, including ones by this developer’s own partner, have taken longer than first promised. This story covers what is known, what is still missing, and what to watch before council takes its final vote.

The Impact of the $90 Million Margaritaville Resort

What’s Actually Being Built

The city describes the project as a second-row hotel covering more than 406,000 square feet. It would rise 18 stories, including a penthouse, and hold 296 rooms, ballroom and conference space, a restaurant and bar, and an oceanfront pool [City of Myrtle Beach, 2026]. The Post and Courier reported that the tower would stand about 188 feet tall and that a neighboring event center is being designed for upscale weddings.

WMBF filled in the rest of the site plan. The resort would replace the former Chesterfield Inn. A beachfront pool complex would include a lazy river and waterslides, and a pedestrian bridge would connect the hotel to the pool area. The plan also calls for a parking garage and a connection to the boardwalk. Earlier design plans showed the tower’s first six floors set aside as garage space [WMBF, 2024], which explains how 296 rooms fit on a second-row lot. When the project was first proposed, city leaders said the bridge over Ocean Boulevard would be only the second of its kind in Myrtle Beach.

About the “water park” label. The city’s announcement mentions an oceanfront pool, not a water park. The developer’s circle has hinted at something larger, though. In 2024, CoStar reported that RREAF Holdings, Innisfree’s partner on a Galveston, Texas, Margaritaville built around a 2.5-acre elevated water park, expected to take on a Myrtle Beach resort with a similar water park [CoStar, 2024]. The current plan, a lazy river plus waterslides on the beach side, looks more like a resort pool deck than a stand-alone park competing with existing attractions. Readers should treat “water park” as a description of the amenities, not a promise of a separate park.

Can locals use it? Nicholson told WMBF that the pool area won’t be limited to hotel guests. When occupancy allows, the public could buy a day pass through a resort-pass system without booking a room. That condition matters. A beachfront resort is likely to be full in July, so the realistic window for locals is probably the spring and fall shoulder seasons. Pricing has not been announced.

The building is only half the deal. The other half is what the city gives up to make room for it.

The Deal: Public Alleys for a Private Resort

The ordinance council advanced is about land the public owns. Under the proposal, the city would trade some alleyways to the developer and sell others at fair market value [City of Myrtle Beach, 2026]. WBTW reported that seven city-owned alleyways along Ocean Boulevard are involved. The Post and Courier described the arrangement as alley swaps in return for land and cash at fair market value.

None of the coverage so far has reported the appraised value of those alleys, which ones would be traded and which sold, or how the city arrived at fair market value. That is a basic public-records question. When public property is sold, the price matters, and residents should be able to see the appraisal before the final vote, not after.

Council also asked for three additions to the agreement [City of Myrtle Beach, 2026]:

Boardwalk improvements from Plyler Park to 16th Avenue North, with the cost shared with the developer
A public parking lot on one of the properties being exchanged
Public restrooms on a second-row lot, if the infrastructure allows

At this stage these are requests, not commitments. WBTW reported that Innisfree will present its response to the proposed public-improvement terms at the second reading. The restroom item already includes a way out (“if infrastructure allows”). The Post and Courier also reported that the boardwalk would be extended two blocks to fit the hotel’s footprint. Since that extension would serve resort guests as much as the public, how the cost is split is a fair question.

Those public benefits are what the city gets in return for the land. The developer’s case to residents rests mostly on economics.

The Economic Pitch

The city says the resort is expected to produce more than $20 million in annual economic impact once it opens and to create local jobs [City of Myrtle Beach, 2026]. Nicholson gave more detail in remarks reported by WBTW: at least 350 local construction jobs, then at least 200 full-time employees with roughly $8 million in payroll in the first year.

Divide that payroll by the headcount and you get an average of about $40,000 per job. That is a reasonable hospitality wage on paper. Averages in the industry tend to be pulled upward by a few salaried managers, though, so the typical housekeeper or server would likely earn less. Nicholson also told council that the resort would start slowly and need time to scale up and stabilize [Post and Courier, 2026]. In other words, the year-one figures describe a ramp-up, not a guaranteed result. None of the coverage so far points to an independent study behind the $20 million figure.

City leaders have backed the brand since the start. When the project was announced in 2023, Mayor Brenda Bethune said Margaritaville fit Myrtle Beach well and could bring in visitors who seek out the brand. Then-Councilman John Krajc argued that major brands invest only where they see promise. That reasoning helps explain why council has stuck with the project through a long approval process.

That process is the next thing locals should look at.

A Long Road, and a Pattern Worth Watching

The resort has been in the pipeline for a long time. Council approved general plans for the parcels in late September 2023, but at that point the city would not name the brand, and the cost and construction timeline were not public. In October 2024 the Community Appearance Board sent the design back with criticism. It approved the design in November 2024 after asking the team to drop a large beach-ball feature from the sky bridge and raising concerns about artificial palm trees. Two years later, building permits are still pending, and the developer says the alley transfers are needed to finalize them.

The developer now plans to break ground in December and expects construction to take about 24 months [City of Myrtle Beach, 2026], with an opening targeted for the first quarter of 2029.

Brand projects elsewhere suggest those dates could slip. When RREAF and Innisfree announced the Galveston resort, they said construction would start in early 2024 [RREAF Holdings press release, 2024]. By April 2026, the project had only just finished geotechnical testing on its way to vertical construction [Bisnow, 2026]. Closer to home, Margaritaville’s website once listed the Compass Hotel in North Myrtle Beach as opening in early 2025 [Margaritaville Resorts]. The area’s tourism bureau now says early 2027 [Myrtle Beach Area CVB].

Delays like these don’t mean anyone did something wrong. Large coastal projects run into financing, permitting and construction-cost problems all the time. They do mean council should think about timing when it writes the agreement. One question worth asking: should the alley transfers depend on construction actually starting by a certain date, so that public land doesn’t end up tied to a project that stalls?

There’s also the question of saturation. WBTW described this as the brand’s third location in the area. Margaritaville already runs a restaurant and two LandShark Bar & Grill locations in Myrtle Beach. The 150-room Compass hotel is under construction in North Myrtle Beach’s Crescent Beach area [Myrtle Beach Area CVB]. The 271-unit Margaritaville Vacation Residences in Arcadian Shores began vertical construction in June 2026 [Citybiz, 2026]. Several developers are betting the Grand Strand can support a lot of Buffett-themed rooms, and the downtown resort would be the largest of them.

What’s Next

The final vote. The city’s release says a special-called council meeting for the second reading is being planned for November [City of Myrtle Beach, 2026]. WMBF and WBTW both reported that the vote is expected next Tuesday. Check the city’s meeting calendar for the confirmed date. That meeting is also the public’s chance to comment.
The developer’s answer. Innisfree is expected to respond at that meeting to council’s requests for the boardwalk cost share, public parking and public restrooms. Watch whether those items end up in the final ordinance as firm obligations or soft intentions.
Permits and groundbreaking. If the ordinance passes, the developer still has to finalize building permits before the December groundbreaking it is aiming for.
Questions that still need answers: the appraised value of the alleys being sold; how boardwalk costs will be split; whether any fee rebates or other incentives are involved; what a resort day pass will cost; and whether the agreement includes any deadline or performance requirement.