Surfside Beach's long-overdue pier is perpetually almost finished. Why? (2024)

SURFSIDE BEACH— The town's long-overdue pierappears nearly finished, but local officials don't know exactly when the public will be able to walk on the $20 million structure.

That uncertainty has irked Surfside Beach Town Council members, who pressed the project's engineers about the delays at their Feb. 13 meeting.

"We've heard this before," Town Councilman Skip Walls said. "This is an ongoing thing. Every time you come up here, you say ... 'They're going to do this, and they're going to do that.' And we're here behind."

The concrete pier is a replacement for the wooden one destroyed by Hurricane Matthew in 2016. It was originally scheduled to be walkable by mid-summer 2022, but target dates have repeatedly come and gone, with the pier, a mainstay of the family-friendly beach, remaining closed.

Zane Peterson from Collins Engineering told the Town Council this week the firm is hesitant to provide another tentative completion date. Instead, he gave the council an itemized list of what still needs to be finished. Some of the projects relate to handrails, concrete work, PVC drainage and finalizing the pier’s ADA compliance, according to town records.

"The schedule that you have appears to be realistic and progressing very well," Peterson said.

Peterson said "substantial completion" on the pier is expected by Feb. 23, but he clarified that the pier will not be open to the public then. Town Council asked Peterson to repeat that clarification several times.

Town Council members told Peterson they were glad Consensus Construction, the contractor building the pier, is nearing the end of its work. But they also emphasized that the public wants to see the pier open.

In construction contracts, substantial completion refers to the point a facility is ready to be put into commercial operation, performance tests have been conducted and performance guarantees have been satisfied, according to the global law firmNorton Rose Fulbright.

Peterson told the council that once substantial completion is achieved around Feb. 23, the pier will receive inspections and go through the final phase of approvals before it can open to the public.

That date hasn't been set.

The pier project was previously postponed due to issues involving siding panels, handrails and design modifications, as well as challenges with the concrete pilings under the pier, town officials said. Supply chain problems also hampered the project.

When finished, the new pier will be approximately the same length as the old wooden one, 800 feet, but will be nine feet taller at 25 feet. The Federal Emergency Management Agency provided $9.5 million for the pier project, with the town covering the rest of the cost.

The first Surfside Beach pier, privately owned by the Holliday family, was destroyed by Hurricane Hazel in 1954, and again by Hurricane Hugo in 1989. It wasn’t rebuilt until 1993. The town has owned and operated the pier since 2008, according to its website.