Splash away at the new Myrtle Beach YMCA

Janelle Frost - jfrost@thesunnews.com

Area families will soon have a new place to exercise and swim.

The 37,000-square-foot Myrtle Beach YMCA is expected to open to the public on Tuesday, said Matt Dempski, executive director of the Grand Strand Family YMCA.

A soft opening for charter members began Wednesday and runs through Monday.



The opening of the new facility, which is on 62nd Avenue North extension between the Intracoastal Waterway and U.S. 17 Bypass, comes a month after the grand opening of a YMCA in Georgetown - that county's first.

Unlike the existing Myrtle Beach branch, known as the Grand Strand Family YMCA, the new Claire Chapin Epps Family YMCA has an indoor swimming pool and an air-conditioned gymnasium, said John Rhoden Jr., chief executive officer of the YMCA of Coastal Carolina.

"It's a state-of-the-art facility," Dempski said. "It's a whole different experience."

Rhoden said the new building is much more welcoming, and officials hope to boost membership from the current 610 families to 900 families by Jan. 1, he said. The membership count is already rising. It numbered 500 families about a month ago.

"We're shooting for 1,500 families by the end of next year," Rhoden said.