Broadway at the Beach
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

Each year, more than 10 million people visit Broadway at the Beach—a 350-acre amusement and recreation facility located at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Tourists are drawn to the site’s specialty shops, hotels, restaurants, nightclubs and other entertainment venues. Those sizable crowds earned Broadway the prestigious Governor’s Cup, an award presented annually by the South Carolina Department of Tourism to the state’s top tourist destination.

As the state’s top tourist destination, it’s important that Broadway look its best day in and day out. To accomplish that goal, Burroughs & Chapin, the South Carolina-based company that owns and manages Broadway at the Beach, built the site’s irrigation system using high-quality Rain Bird irrigation equipment.

Rain Bird was the First and Only Choice

In fact, Rain Bird products are the only irrigation products in use at Broadway at the Beach. In 1994, as Broadway was making the transition from blueprints to reality, the company thought long and hard about how best to irrigate the massive, 350-acre facility. According to Ken Bass, Director of Commercial Maintenance at Burroughs & Chapin, there was little debate about building the irrigation system exclusively with Rain Bird equipment. “There was no question about using Rain Bird,” says Bass. “I was very familiar with Rain Bird—they were the natural choice for Broadway at the Beach.”

J. David Utterback, a South Carolina-based Landscape Architect who designed the irrigation system for several sites within the larger Broadway facility, including the new NASCAR Speedpark, had similar reasons for incorporating Rain Bird products into his design plans. “People don’t like to change horses in mid-stream,” says Utterback. “I learned with Rain Bird at school, so I spec Rain Bird today when I have a choice.”

When it came time to obtain the individual elements for the Broadway irrigation system, the irrigation team contacted W.P. Law, Inc., one of South Carolina’s largest distributors of equipment for irrigation and pumping systems. According to Calvin Golden, Assistant Manager of Turf Sales with the company, he wasn’t surprised by the level of care the irrigation team demonstrated in selecting the precise rotors, sprays and valves for the project. “The folks at Burroughs & Chapin, as far as the projects of theirs that I know of, they always do it first-class. I haven’t heard any complaints from them about any of the Rain Bird components.”

Varied Soil Conditions Present Unique Challenges

With the decision to use Rain Bird components made, the Broadway irrigation team turned its attention to a new challenge—the island’s multiple soil types. According to Utterback: “We have essentially three types of soil here. There’s a silicate that looks like black dirt—water just stands on that. We also have a wet clay that’s like jello which the locals call gumbo. And then we have sand—my office sits on an old sand dune. It’s a real hodgepodge of soil and it presents a real challenge (for irrigation).”

According to John Streater, an irrigation contractor who is a member of the Broadway at the Beach irrigation team, the soil conditions had to be considered when installing and fine-tuning the irrigation system, “The gumbo mud is a gooey clay,” he says. “Water will sit on top of it, so you have to keep the nozzle size down.”

A System Based on Precision

The irrigation team was tasked with designing an irrigation system that would keep large turf areas, shrubs and planters looking their best—even in the hot dry summer months. The system not only had to be reliable—it also had to irrigate with precision.

Precision distribution is an important system demand because of the number of pedestrians at the site. Says Utterback: “You have to think of the safety of all the pedestrians. You can’t just throw water because you’ll end up with a lot of slick surfaces.”

The irrigation team selected Rain Bird 1800 Series pop-up spray sprinklers. The 1800 Series sprays, the industry’s leading spray sprinklers, are recognized for providing uniform irrigation for turf and shrub applications. In addition to the 1800 series sprays, the site’s system also uses nearly one thousand R-50 Rotors. The R-50’s heavy-duty, closed case rotor design provides reliable service under demanding conditions. The R-50’s Radius+ and Rain Curtain™ nozzles also achieve consistent irrigation over areas in a 21 to 50 foot radius.

Another complication the system design had to resolve was the relatively short water window. Broadway at the Beach closes each night at midnight and reopens at ten in the morning. During those ten hours maintenance crews, suppliers and other personnel are hard at work cleaning, restocking and supplying Broadway at the Beach for another day of business. That means irrigation schedules have to be precisely timed so as not to interfere with or delay those crews’ preparations. Rain Bird ESP-MC controllers were selected to manage the system. The ESP-MC controller was chosen, says Streater, “Because they are very reliable and easy to program.”

New Attraction Also Relies on Rain Bird

The newest addition to the Broadway at the Beach is a NASCAR Speedpark which opened the first week July in 1998. The Speedpark features seven race tracks where visitors can test their driving skills in reduced-scale race cars.

According to Burroughs & Chapin’s Bass, the 27-acre facility will boast turf, ornamental shrubs, palmetto trees, annual and perennial flowering plants. For a water source, the NASCAR Speedpark draws from a man-made, 2.5 acre spider-shaped lagoon. The system features nearly 500 Rain Bird R-50 rotors, more than 1000 1800 series spray heads, nearly 100 hard-working PEB valves, and ESP-MC series controllers.