The money chase: Can Horry County ever land a record-breaking project?

Sandy Davis doesn’t need to look very far for signs of Horry County’s perpetual growth.

All she needs to do is turn around.

Davis runs an economic development agency inside America’s fastest growing metropolitan area, and her second floor office at Horry-Georgetown Technical College overlooks U.S. 501 — the region’s busiest highway.

Coming off a record breaking year for job development and private investment across the Grand Strand, Davis has lots to be happy about.

But the question looms: Will Horry County ever land The Big One?

“There’s so many factors that go into where somebody is looking,” Davis, who runs the Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corporation, said.

Within a week, two cities inside a 100-mile radius of Myrtle Beach locked down historic deals in the lucrative electric battery market: On Dec. 6, Envision AESC announced plans to build an $810 million factory in support of BMW’s clean energy vehicle models - employing 1,170 people.

Redwood Materials went even higher, rolling out plans Dec. 14 to spend $3.5 billion and create 1,500 jobs in Berkeley County on a plant that will create battery components for vehicles.

Florence County Council chairman Willard Dorriety said easy access to Interstates 95 and 20, proximity to Inland Port Dillon and ability to provide infrastructure for Envision’s planned 1.5 million-square-foot factory were essential in closing the deal.

Envision will build inside Florence’s 870-acre Technology and Commerce Park. Horry County’s largest industrial park is less than half that size.

“Horry County has water and beach. That is totally different from us. We have I-95 and we have I-20, and we have easy access to the inland port and we have a rail system,” he said. “So those things are very important to anyone wanting to locate in our area.”

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Over the past year, Horry County has landed more than $120 million worth of investments from companies including PepsiCo, FedEx and data center provider DC BLOX, creating a total of 268 new jobs.

Smaller scale announcements have included a sock logo manufacturer launching operations in Loris and expansions of Carolina Food Service and Carolina Refractories, Inc.

The county’s 3.3% unemployment rate means just more than 4,900 people are available for work.

“Our top priority is what we already have. We want everybody that we have to be happy,” Davis said. “If we have all these people contacting me telling me they’re having trouble finding people (to work), we don’t want to hurt not just our manufacturing, but our hospitality. We want to work to make sure everyone has a workforce.”

Supersized projects like Florence’s are rare in South Carolina’s nine-county northeastern region. Of the 24,712 businesses inside them, just 108 of them employ between 250 and 1,000 or more people.

Jeff McKay, executive director of the North Eastern Strategic Alliance that works on economic development within those nine counties, said Horry County benefits from having a diverse industrial climate.

“You’re not dependent on one sector of the economy either rising or falling for your success,” he said. “If you spread your economy across, it doesn’t get punished with having all your eggs in one basket, so to speak.”

Horry County’s strategic plan lists development of a “more diversified and resilient economy” as a main objective heading into 2022-23. The council allocated $1.1 million in next year’s budget to promote corporate retention and relocation.

“Horry County is highly dependent upon the tourism industry and should continue to foster its growth. In addition, the county and its partners should work to diversify its employment base and provide the infrastructure to support such growth,” the county’s strategic plan states.

Conway’s 49.2-acre Ascott Valley Industrial Park last week was named a state Department of Commerce “Palmetto site” through 2027, giving it a spot on the agency’s official database and additional marketing support for future development.

The park is 47 miles from Interstate 95 and has a maximum building size of 450,000 square feet.

“Given general geographic positioning away from the interstate, there is opportunity for projects (e.g., light assembly with smaller distribution footprint) who don’t want to compete with big box distribution,” state commerce officials wrote in their assessment.

A blockbuster project like Envision AESC has planned requires spin-off businesses to feed its distribution and supply chain. Davis said she expects some of that activity to arrive in Horry County.

So does Dorriety.

“As we grow economically, creating new businesses is only going to help the entire region, the entire 7th congressional district,” he said. “The Pee Dee region can compete with Greenville and Spartanburg and Richland County and Charleston.”