Conway Medical Center halts building controversial hospital near nature preserve
HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) — Conway Medical Center officials said Tuesday at an Horry County Council meeting that they no longer plan to build a $160 million state-of-the-art hospital across from Lewis Bay Ocean Preserve.
Horry County Council deferred the third and final reading of the proposed rezoning of the property until Aug. 13 to give the hospital more time to sell the property to the Department of Natural Resources.
The hospital, which was expected to create 250 new jobs, would have been located in the Carolina Forest area on International Drive, between Highway 31 and Highway 90.
Plans for the facility were introduced in 2020. The project has faced opposition from community members and environmental groups who expressed concerns about noise, controlled burns, and flooding in the area because of the proximity to a nature preserve.
The Lewis Ocean Bay Heritage Preserve is a 10,000-acre sanctuary with biodiverse plants and animals that are native to South Carolina. Horry County’s Imagine 2040 plan discourages development near Lewis Ocean Bay to allow prescribed burns and to protect the county from flooding.
The facility would have been the first in South Carolina, and one of only a very few in the world, to be designed from the ground up with a pandemic mode allowing for all patient rooms to function as infectious patient isolation rooms.
Becky Ryon of the North Coast Office Director with Coastal Conservation League called Tuesday night’s decision a victory.
“We do appreciate County Council working with Conway Medical Center to defer it to see hopefully a conservation outcome,” Ryon said. “We will be watching over the next six months, but it’s very hopeful tonight. ”
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Taylor Ford is a digital journalist for News13. She joined the News13 team in January 2023. Taylor is a Florence native and covers the Pee Dee out of News13’s Florence Bureau. Read more of Taylor’s work here.
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