Do Horry County Council members want to reignite the airport war with their counterparts on Myrtle Beach City Council? You have to wonder after a majority of County Council members prospectively reneged Thursday on their 2004 pledge to extend Harrelson Boulevard between the current Myrtle Beach International Airport terminal and U.S. 17 Business.
The County Council majority, we're sure, did not reach this decision easily. Faced with the challenge of scaling the construction cost of a new terminal west of the airport runway back to $200 million, council members omitted a number of "frills" from the project.
Readers will recall that the cost estimate for the new terminal as originally conceived had burgeoned as high as $253 million - up from the $185 million initial cost estimate for the 14-gate terminal. Council members hope that, by eliminating about $50 million from the terminal specifications, they can bring the project into their affordability comfort zone while getting their contractor to set a price for the finished product.
But as Councilman Marion Foxworth pointed out Thursday, the council majority made a big mistake in balancing the terminal costs on the back of their Harrelson Boulevard pledge. That pledge was one of the linchpins with which County Council cemented its deal with City Council - not only to get zoning approval for the new terminal but also to end decades of city-county fighting over the airport and the revenue streams that support it.
As part of that deal, the city agreed to devote the revenues that fed its former airport fund to county use. In return, the county pledged to extend the boulevard to U.S. 17 Business - giving drivers an arterial route to the south end of the city. In saying Thursday that "to me and the neighbors of that project, Harrelson Boulevard is just as important, if not more important, than the terminal," Foxworth made no exaggeration.
It's not hard to imagine what would happen if County Council voted formally to omit the Harrelson extension from its terminal plan. City Council, in turn, would revisit the question that plagued some members last year: Should we reconstitute the city airport fund now that the county has betrayed us on Harrelson Boulevard? Readers familiar with past city-county infighting know what the answer would be: Yes.
Moreover, the $1.5 million that the Myrtle Beach Air Force Base Redevelopment Authority pledged toward the Harrelson Boulevard project likely would disappear. That pledge, readers will recall, helped persuade both councils to cut their historic airport deal.
The unraveling of the city-county airport deal could threaten the terminal project. Finding a different $6 million to squeeze out of the terminal project would be hard, but County Council members should do it just the same. They gave their word they would build the road and should keep it.