Myrtle Beach News

Garden City Pier for sale at $15 million

March 6, 2026

The Garden City Pier, located on South Waccamaw Drive, is up for sale and attracting interest, with an online listing indicating a price of $15 million for the oceanfront landmark.

LoopNet, a commercial real estate platform, has the pier on South Waccamaw Drive available for purchase at a price of $15 million. According to the listing, the property features a tackle shop, café, and arcade.

Walking Into History:

A Visitor’s Guide to the Garden City Pier,

Garden City Beach, South Carolina

Introduction

There is a certain kind of place that resists the relentless march of commercialization — a place that has been battered, broken, and reborn, yet somehow never loses its soul. The Pier at Garden City Beach, South Carolina, is exactly that kind of place. Stretching nearly 700 feet into the Atlantic Ocean from the quiet community of Garden City Beach, just eight miles south of Myrtle Beach, this weathered wooden landmark has been quietly drawing fishermen, families, and sunset-chasers since the 1940s [The Pier at Garden City, 2025]. It is, in every meaningful sense, the heartbeat of Garden City Beach.

For tourists who have grown weary of the Grand Strand’s increasingly polished tourist infrastructure, the pier offers something rare: authenticity. No cover charge to walk the boards. No velvet rope. No Instagram backdrop designed by committee. Just salt air, the rhythmic thump of ocean waves beneath your feet, and the quiet pleasure of a community landmark that has refused to become something it isn’t. This guide will walk you through the pier’s remarkable history, what to do when you get there, and why — right now — it sits at a genuinely fascinating crossroads.

To understand the pier, you first need to understand Garden City Beach itself. This small, unincorporated community occupies a narrow strip of South Carolina coastline in Horry County, running south from Surfside Beach down to the peninsula at the mouth of Murrells Inlet [Wikipedia, 2025]. In the early days — sometime in the 1940s — it was not much more than a loose collection of fishing shacks and modest summer cottages strung along an unspoiled stretch of coast [The Pier at Garden City, 2025]. No boardwalk, no neon signs, no branded beach towel shops. Just the ocean, the inlet, and the people who loved them.

It was in this era of stripped-down coastal simplicity that the original pier took root. Known then as the Kingfisher Pier, it became an anchor for a community that spent its days knee-deep in bait buckets and salt spray [SC Picture Project, 2019]. Local families discovered that the pier wasn’t just a platform for dropping a line — it was a social institution. Neighbors met here. Children learned to fish here. Word spread that Garden City Beach was the kind of place that rewarded slow mornings and easy afternoons. The Kingfisher Pier was the reason many of them kept coming back.

So what does this mean for you as a visitor? It means you’re not walking into a manufactured tourist attraction — you’re walking into a place that has meant something real to real people for over eight decades. That’s increasingly rare on any coastline.

The Garden City pier’s story is inseparable from the story of the hurricanes that tried to erase it. The first major blow came on October 15, 1954, when Hurricane Hazel — a Category 4 monster — made landfall near Little River and effectively rewrote Garden City’s coastline in a single night [The Pier at Garden City, 2025].

The storm pushed sustained winds of 150 mph and a punishing storm surge inland, leaving behind a community in ruins. Of all the buildings that once stood in Garden City, only two homes were left habitable afterward [Garden City Beach SC, 2023]. The Kingfisher Pier was reduced to scattered lumber.

But the community rebuilt — and so did the Garden City pier. It rose again, became once more the social and recreational center of Garden City life, and carried on for another three and a half decades.

Then, in 1989, Hurricane Hugo arrived and dismantled everything a second time. Hugo’s 20-foot storm surge tore through the beachfront, destroying nearly half of all structures in the area and leaving the Kingfisher Pier in splinters for good [WBTW/WSPA, 2026].

What emerged from that second devastation was a more intentional structure. Reconstruction began in February 1992, and by July of that year the Garden City pier reopened — no longer the Kingfisher Pier, but now officially named The Garden City Pier. [Wikipedia, 2025].

The rebuilt structure stretched 668 feet into the Atlantic and incorporated a covered rain shelter at its seaward end, which over time would evolve into a bandstand, a dance floor, and a bar with views of nothing but open ocean [SC Picture Project, 2019]. Modern engineering met traditional Southern charm, and the result was a pier that felt simultaneously new and timeless.

So what does this mean for you? Every plank you walk on carries the memory of two catastrophic storms and two determined rebuilds. The pier’s resilience isn’t marketing copy — it’s the actual history of a community that simply refused to give up on this particular stretch of coastline.

The Garden City Pier is open from March through December, with extended 24-hour access during peak summer fishing season [SC Picture Project, 2019].

Walking out on the pier is completely free — a fact that is both refreshing and increasingly unusual among popular pier destinations. If you want to fish, you’ll need to purchase a pier fishing pass, but that pass covers everything: you don’t need a separate South Carolina fishing license, which is a genuine convenience for out-of-town visitors [HomeBliss Sand & Sea, 2025].

The Garden City Pier fishing itself is the real draw for many. Species commonly caught here include flounder, king mackerel, red drum, pompano, whiting, and — for the more adventurous — sharks [HomeBliss Sand & Sea, 2025].

The Garden City pier’s on-site tackle shop stocks bait, gear, and rods for rent, and the staff are genuinely invested in helping first-timers succeed. The pier is well-lit and stays active through the night during fishing season, so early-morning and late-evening casts are entirely viable options.

Then there is the music. During summer months, nightly live performances — ranging from beach music and shag dancing to classic rock and country — transform the far end of the Garden City pier into something that feels less like a tourist amenity and more like a community gathering [The Pier at Garden City, 2025].

Two stages are positioned along the pier’s length: one near the entrance, another on a dance floor suspended directly over the Atlantic. The setting is, by any measure, remarkable. Dancers move to the beat while waves slide under the boards beneath their feet.

The pier also houses an arcade, a small café serving casual fare, and two oceanfront bars [My Horry News, 2025]. TripAdvisor reviewers — who have collectively given it a 4.4 rating and named it the number-one thing to do in Garden City Beach — consistently describe it as a place where families of all ages feel genuinely welcome, even at the evening bar [TripAdvisor, 2025].

So what does this mean for you? A single afternoon on the Garden City pier can contain multitudes: a peaceful morning cast, a lazy lunch at the café, and an evening of live music over open ocean. It’s a rare destination that rewards both solitude and sociability.

The Garden City pier’s cultural significance is more than a matter of local sentiment — it’s been validated repeatedly by the people who visit. Local newspaper The Sun News named it “Best of the Beach” in a visitors’ poll, and it was voted Best Pier in the area in 2004 and again for five consecutive years from 2006 through 2010 [SC Picture Project, 2019]. Southern Living Magazine has included Garden City among the best things to do in Murrells Inlet — a recognition that reflects the entire community’s appeal, with the pier at its center [The Pier at Garden City, 2025].

These aren’t abstract statistics. They represent an accumulated verdict from thousands of visitors who had other options on the Grand Strand and chose to spend their time here. In a region that offers every manner of manufactured coastal entertainment — water parks, outlet malls, resort complexes — this community-built, community-loved Garden City pier keeps outranking all of it in the categories that actually matter: authenticity, atmosphere, and the sense that something real is happening here.

So what does this mean for you? The numbers offer a useful shortcut: this is not a hidden gem that only locals know about. It’s a well-documented, widely celebrated destination with a track record of delivering on its promises.

Here is where things get genuinely interesting for anyone visiting in 2026. In late November 2025, a commercial real estate listing appeared on LoopNet offering the Garden City Pier — the structure, the real estate, and all its amenities — for $15 million [My Horry News, 2025].

The listing described it as a “rare opportunity to own one of the nicest piers in the Atlantic Ocean on a beautiful Carolina beach.” The .84-acre property includes the café, the arcade, the tackle shop, the two music stages, and 40 parking spaces underneath the structure [WMBF News, 2026].

The Garden City Pier listing has generated considerable local anxiety. The pier is currently owned by Kingfisher Associates LLC, a nod to the original Kingfisher Pier name [WMBF News, 2026]. Some residents were under the impression that the county owned it; others worry about what a change in ownership might mean for the pier’s famously free admission and its casual, community-oriented character. Garden City resident Olivia Edwards perhaps spoke for many when she said she hoped any new owner would preserve the Garden City pier exactly as it is [WMBF News, 2026].

Adding a layer of intrigue: the listing agent, Kenny Wells, later told reporters that the Garden City Pier was not actually meant to be publicly listed, and he was uncertain how it ended up on LoopNet [Yahoo News, 2026].

The Garden City pier’s owner’s son declined to comment when reached by WPDE News [WPDE, 2026]. As of early March 2026, the pier is temporarily closed for its annual winter maintenance, with reopening expected in mid-March.

So what does this mean for you? Visit with intention this season. The pier has survived two category-four hurricanes. Whether it survives the real estate market in its current form is a question no one can yet answer. If there is ever a time to experience the Garden City Pier as it has always been, that time is now.

Some places matter not because of what they offer, but because of what they represent. The Garden City Pier represents the stubborn persistence of simple pleasures: casting a line, watching the sun drop below the horizon, dancing under the stars with strangers who are briefly your neighbors.

It has been rebuilt twice from near-total destruction and has spent over 30 years accumulating the kind of warmth that no architect can draft into a new building.

For tourists arriving at Garden City Beach, the pier is the obvious first stop — and the one most likely to set the tone for your entire visit. Walk it in the morning when the fishing crowd is quiet and the water is silver.

Come back in the evening when the bands start and the ocean breeze carries the music sideways across the boards. Bring children, bring grandparents, bring whoever is willing to slow down for a few hours and let the Atlantic remind you what matters.

The Garden City pier at the end of Atlantic Avenue is free to walk, honest in its character, and — if the next chapter of its history goes well — still waiting for you.

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Garden City Pier for sale at $15 million

Introduction

Further Reading & Sources

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Introduction

Further Reading & Sources

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