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Community Guide · Myrtle Beach, SC

Market Common

The town the beach built downtown.

Myrtle Beach’s only true live-work-play district — boutiques, restaurants, a movie theater, and lakeside parks laid out on Charleston-style streets where an Air Force base used to be. Sidewalk life, five minutes from the sand.

Talk to Ko about Market Common Text
2008
District Opened
$300s–$700s
Townhomes to Single-Family
~5 min
To the Beach & Airport
1,100+ acres
Former Air Force Base
Living Here

Sidewalks, storefronts, and a five-minute beach.

When Myrtle Beach Air Force Base closed in the nineties, the city got a rare do-over: eleven hundred acres a mile from the ocean, planned from scratch. What went up is the only neighborhood of its kind on the Strand — an urban village where brownstone-style townhomes sit above and beside shops, restaurants line real sidewalks, and the Grand 14 marquee anchors an actual main street. The military bones are still visible if you know where to look: Valor Memorial Garden, the preserved warbird, street names that read like a squadron roster.

The daily texture is the sell. Farmers market on Saturdays, movies and dinner without moving the car, morning laps around Grand Park’s lake, and one of the best recreation complexes in the state hosting everything from soccer tournaments to food-truck festivals. Myrtle Beach State Park’s uncrowded pier-and-pines beach is about five minutes east — the locals’ beach, not the boardwalk — and the airport is so close that pickup runs take ten minutes door to door.

It’s the only Myrtle Beach address where “walk to dinner” means sidewalks and storefronts — not flip-flops on the shoulder of Highway 17.

Housing splits into two personalities: the District itself, with townhomes and condos stacked into the walkable core, and the residential neighborhoods ringing it — Emmens Preserve’s lakes and firepit commons, Cresswind’s 55+ resort campus, the Withers Preserve enclaves — offering single-family space a golf-cart ride from the storefronts. Nowhere else in Horry County does “walk to dinner” describe an actual lifestyle rather than a listing exaggeration.

The Lay of the Land

A district, a park, and the neighborhoods around them.

Market Common organizes around its walkable core and Grand Park’s lakes, with Farrow Parkway looping the old base and the beach and airport minutes off either edge.

MARKET COMMON MYRTLE BEACH  ·  SOUTH CAROLINA 17 BUSINESS Farrow Pkwy Grand Park The District · shops & townhomes Emmens Preserve Cresswind Sweetgrass Square Highlands at Withers Balmoral Belle Harbor to MB State Park & the beach → ← MYR Airport ~5 min N

Stylized orientation map — not to scale. Every dot is a community Ko can walk you through in person.

The Neighborhoods

The District core, and the villages around it.

Price bands are typical resale ranges and shift with the market — text Ko for what any of these are doing this month.

The District

$200s – $500s

Townhomes, lofts, and condos in the walkable heart — some literally above the storefronts. The purest version of the Market Common promise: park the car Friday, need it again Monday. HOA fees reflect the lifestyle; know what they cover.

Emmens Preserve

$400s – $700s

The flagship single-family neighborhood — lakes, a resort pool, outdoor kitchens and firepit commons, and craftsman streetscapes a golf-cart ride from dinner. The most-requested address in the district, and priced like it.

Sweetgrass Square

$300s – $500s

Charleston-style rows with porches and picket proportions on the district’s north side — the architectural postcard of Market Common, popular with buyers who want the look with a bit less HOA weight.

Highlands at Withers Preserve

$400s – $600s

Newer single-family homes on the preserve side — current floor plans, natural-gas kitchens, and a quieter remove that’s still five minutes from the marquee.

Balmoral at Withers Preserve

$300s – $500s

The value-forward Withers enclave — efficient newer homes, community pool, and the same walk-and-bike access to Grand Park’s lakes and trails.

Cresswind

$400s – $600s

The 55+ resort campus — single-level living, a packed clubhouse calendar, pickleball culture, and lock-and-leave ease, all inside the district’s golf-cart radius. One of the strongest active-adult communities on the coast.

Belle Harbor

$300s – $500s

The newest quarter — townhomes and single-family on the district’s southeast side, closest to the State Park beach entrance. Builder inventory here often means incentives in the current market.

Schools & the Base Legacy

  • Myrtle Beach Primary
  • Myrtle Beach Elementary
  • Myrtle Beach Intermediate
  • Myrtle Beach Middle
  • Myrtle Beach High School
  • Valor Memorial & Warbird Park — in district

Market Common feeds the Myrtle Beach city school cluster, with several campuses on or beside the old base itself. Assignments vary by address — Ko verifies current zoning with Horry County Schools for any home you’re considering.

Drive Times

  • Myrtle Beach State Park (beach)~5 min
  • MYR Airport~5 min
  • Broadway at the Beach~10 min
  • Coastal Grand Mall~7 min
  • The Boardwalk & SkyWheel~10 min
  • Surfside Beach~10 min
  • Murrells Inlet MarshWalk~20 min

Times are typical off-peak estimates — and half the point here is how rarely you need the car at all.

Market Snapshot

What Market Common actually costs.

You’re buying walkability — the district trades at a premium to comparable square footage elsewhere in the 29577, and holds it.

District townhomes & condos$200K – $500K
Single-family (Emmens, Withers)$400K – $700K
Cresswind 55+$400K – $600K
Surrounding 29577 average~$280K – $315K
Current market postureBuyer-leaning; walkable core resilient
HOA feesMeaningful — verify inclusions

Snapshot reflects mid-2026 conditions and typical ranges, not a valuation of any specific property. For a current, street-level read on any neighborhood — or what your Market Common home would list for today — call or text Ko.

Good Questions

What buyers ask about Market Common.

Is Market Common a good place to live?
If walkability is the priority, it’s not just good — it’s the only game on the Strand. Restaurants, a theater, a farmers market, and serious parks all inside the neighborhood, with the locals’ beach five minutes east. The honest trade-offs: HOA fees carry real weight here, and you pay a walkability premium over similar square footage a few miles inland.
Was Market Common really an Air Force base?
It was — Myrtle Beach Air Force Base flew missions from this ground until 1993, and the redevelopment kept the memory deliberately close: Valor Memorial Garden, the A-10 at Warbird Park, and street names honoring the squadrons. Some longtime locals still give directions by where the runway was.
How much do homes in Market Common cost?
The core townhomes and condos run roughly $200K–$500K depending on size and position. Single-family in Emmens Preserve and the Withers neighborhoods runs $400K–$700K, with Cresswind’s 55+ homes in the $400K–$600K band. Factor HOA dues into any monthly math — they vary widely by sub-community and by what they cover.
Is Market Common walkable to the beach?
The district is walkable; the beach is bikeable. Sand is about five minutes by car at the State Park entrance, and plenty of residents make it a bike or golf-cart run. The everyday walking happens inside the neighborhood — dinner, the theater, the Saturday market, Grand Park’s lake loop.
What is there to do in Market Common?
More than anywhere else on the Strand per square foot: boutiques and a dozen-plus restaurants, the Grand 14 marquee, the farmers market, Grand Park’s lake loop and athletic complex, Savannah’s Playground for the grandkids, and a nonstop events calendar — car shows, food-truck festivals, the holiday tree lighting that draws half the city.
Is now a good time to buy in Market Common?
The wider market leans buyer-friendly, and the newest sections — Belle Harbor especially — have builder inventory and the incentives that come with it. Worth knowing: the walkable core has historically held value better than the broader 29577 in soft stretches. Scarcity of the product does the work; nobody’s building another downtown.
Let’s Talk Market Common

From the District to the preserves — Ko knows every HOA by name.

843.455.1227
Call or text anytime — or email ko@kocoastalliving.com
Text Me @ko.coastal.living