Three abandoned buildings will one day become a theater.
But the journey to get there is “weird” and opaque at best, and potentially illegal at worst.
The cost for this? It’s over $22 million of government money.
The goal? To get at least $4.9 million in state and federal tax credits.
Where’s all that money coming from? A nonprofit called Myrtle Beach Downtown Redevelopment Corporation with a web of private LLCs that are muddled in mixed definitions and transparency.
When asked simple questions about the structure, politicians, nonprofit experts, and state employees in Columbia seem perplexed. These experts and leaders say they’ve never heard of something like this before.
Policy analyst Sam Aarons from the South Carolina Policy Council said that just because it seems like the city can structure the project like this doesn’t mean they necessarily should.
“The whole thing is very odd,” he said. “I would say this whole structure is very confusing at a minimum, intentionally vague at worst.”