Wan welcome for Wonderworks

Saturday’s editorial suggests that the Community Appearance Board’s rigid adherence to standards is good for Myrtle Beach, even as it ruffles feathers.

When the Myrtle Beach Community Appearance Board shockingly refused in August to allow WonderWorks to build an upside-down children's museum at Broadway at the Beach, the decision seemed to be yet another instance of the board's oft-complained-about totalitarian reign over the city. Board members' unanimous decision Thursday to allow construction of the building, however, shows that they were just doing their jobs all along.

WonderWorks is a 100-foot-tall, 30,000-square-foot science museum planned for site of the former Crab House Restaurant, planting an upside-down building into a landscape already populated by the Hard Rock Café's pyramid, a giant swinging pirate ship, a mini-golf medeival castle, a lighthouse and other unusual sights. The project is expected to cost between $13 million and $15 million and, when open in spring of 2011, to employ 120 people.

At a time when jobs are at a premium and new developments are few and far between, a project on the scale of Wonderworks is one any city would beg for. Further, it's hard to imagine that an upside-down building – or much else, for that matter - could be construed as out of character for the wildly eclectic Broadway at the Beach. So when the Community Appearance Board initially turned the whole thing down by 4-3 vote, it seemed an act of something between tyranny or blindness.

The Community Appearance Board, we'd note, already carries this reputation to a degree. It famously scuttled initial plans for an entire airport expansion, and, on a smaller scale, many a businessman will complain about the time board members told him they didn't like the color of his sign. (True to form, by the way, before dealing with WonderWorks, the board engaged in a lengthy back-and-forth with city officials over the colors of the flags along the boardwalk.)

Rather than impeding progress, however, the Community Appearance Board is doing the very hard, very unpopular work of trying to maintain standards in Myrtle Beach. Our city is known as fertile ground for wild ideas, and with those ideas inevitably come deviations from the norm. The board's job is to accommodate that impulse without allowing the town to degenerate into a Redneck Riviera of banner-waving roadside bauble hawkers, and it takes that duty very seriously.

That tension is made clear in CAB chair Larry Bragg's comments about WonderWorks. The project was initially turned down, in a nutshell, because it is so much larger than the buildings that immediately surround it, and because the project's architect was not there to answer the technical questions the board had about the project. Yet Bragg has noted that he was personally in favor of the project, despite his initial ‘no' vote.

“I was excited about it when I turned it down,” Bragg said Thursday. “I felt it was unfair to base that decision on so many questions that were unanswered.”

This week, the architect appeared, the questions were answered, the project was approved and Myrtle Beach will profit from it. Likewise, the airport is now well on its way to construction in an attractive way that accomodates the needs of nearby residents, and so on for the many other projects the board has improved. Perhaps a gentler touch could have been used at the outset – couldn't the board have postponed a vote, rather than dropping that glaring ‘no'? – but rather than demonizing the board members, Myrtle Beach again owes them thanks for their commitment.

WonderWorks is a 100-foot-tall, 30,000-square-foot science museum planned for site of the former Crab House Restaurant, planting an upside-down building into a landscape already populated by the Hard Rock Café's pyramid, a giant swinging pirate ship, a mini-golf medeival castle, a lighthouse and other unusual sights. The project is expected to cost between $13 million and $15 million and, when open in spring of 2011, to employ 120 people.

At a time when jobs are at a premium and new developments are few and far between, a project on the scale of Wonderworks is one any city would beg for. Further, it's hard to imagine that an upside-down building – or much else, for that matter - could be construed as out of character for the wildly eclectic Broadway at the Beach. So when the Community Appearance Board initially turned the whole thing down by 4-3 vote, it seemed an act of something between tyranny or blindness.

The Community Appearance Board, we'd note, already carries this reputation to a degree. It famously scuttled initial plans for an entire airport expansion, and, on a smaller scale, many a businessman will complain about the time board members told him they didn't like the color of his sign. (True to form, by the way, before dealing with WonderWorks, the board engaged in a lengthy back-and-forth with city officials over the colors of the flags along the boardwalk.)

Rather than impeding progress, however, the Community Appearance Board is doing the very hard, very unpopular work of trying to maintain standards in Myrtle Beach. Our city is known as fertile ground for wild ideas, and with those ideas inevitably come deviations from the norm. The board's job is to accommodate that impulse without allowing the town to degenerate into a Redneck Riviera of banner-waving roadside bauble hawkers, and it takes that duty very seriously.

That tension is made clear in CAB chair Larry Bragg's comments about WonderWorks. The project was initially turned down, in a nutshell, because it is so much larger than the buildings that immediately surround it, and because the project's architect was not there to answer the technical questions the board had about the project. Yet Bragg has noted that he was personally in favor of the project, despite his initial ‘no' vote.

“I was excited about it when I turned it down,” Bragg said Thursday. “I felt it was unfair to base that decision on so many questions that were unanswered.”

This week, the architect appeared, the questions were answered, the project was approved and Myrtle Beach will profit from it. Likewise, the airport is now well on its way to construction in an attractive way that accomodates the needs of nearby residents, and so on for the many other projects the board has improved. Perhaps a gentler touch could have been used at the outset – couldn't the board have postponed a vote, rather than dropping that glaring ‘no'? – but rather than demonizing the board members, Myrtle Beach again owes them thanks for their commitment.