Around The Marina And Ocean Club: What's New Near Del Webb Grande Dunes This Summer

If you bought at Del Webb Grande Dunes any time in the last five years, you bought into a master-planned community that was still filling in. This summer, three of the pieces you were promised at the sales center are finally arriving at the same time. A brewery is rising on the marina dock. The Ocean Club has quietly reinvented itself. And the Waterway Trail behind the YMCA is on track to reach the Marina.

For residents, that means the neighborhood you walk out of every morning is not the same one you'll walk back into by fall.

The Marina Is About To Become A Destination Again

The clearest change is happening at 8201 Marina Parkway, a short golf-cart ride from any Del Webb front door.

A $6.4 million brewery is coming to the Grande Dunes Marina, and the team behind 357 Brewers is building a 10,000-square-foot facility off Highway 17 overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway. The campus sits at the iconic Mile Marker 357, spread across three acres designed for bold beer, elevated food, and unforgettable moments.

What sets this apart from a standard brewery opening is who is behind it and what they are already running next door. The operators are Vaugh and Spadaccini Hospitality Group, the team behind Crave Italian Oven and Sole Luna Latin Cantina, and the campus will be steps away from the 357 Raw location, along with the Marina Inn at Grande Dunes. The Vaugh brothers are essentially building a small food-and-drink district on top of the marina you already use.

The physical plan gives residents something the marina has never had:

• A 10,000-square-foot brewery with a 15-barrel system and a 3-barrel pilot system
• Full-service indoor and outdoor bars with panoramic water views
• The Carolina Music Yard, a waterfront stage for live music and community gatherings
• Fire pits, shaded patios, and a dedicated kids' play zone for grandkids visiting
• A mezzanine-level bar and private deck overlooking the boats

357 Brewers is expected to open in the summer of 2026. Watch the fenced site along Marina Parkway. Steel started going up earlier this year.

The Ocean Club Stopped Acting Like A Country Club

If you attended the Ocean Club more than a year ago and wrote it off, it is worth another visit. The building is the same. The programming is not.

The Ocean Club has undergone significant changes, with recent renovations transforming the venue from a formal, Mediterranean-themed setting to a more casual, coastal-inspired environment, with changes completed in October. The kitchen has a new lead. Executive Chef Russell Collin leads the culinary program, a Johnson & Wales graduate blending fine dining experience with coastal flavor.

What matters more than the paint job is the weekly rhythm. The Club now runs on a schedule built for residents who don't want to plan every meal:

That is the difference between an amenity you show visitors once and an amenity that becomes your Wednesday. The two outdoor terraces off the main dining room have become social favorites among Grande Dunes residents, perfect for community clubs and casual evenings under the stars, and the verandas have become a particular favorite of the cigar club.

The menu leans coastal without turning into a resort buffet. The culinary team regularly features menu items that embody the geography and season, with standout dinner options including roasted red pepper and she crab soup, OC fish and chips, and pan-seared barramundi.

The Waterway Trail Is Getting Longer

The two-mile paved path along the Intracoastal is the amenity most Del Webb residents already know, but the connection has always felt incomplete.

The Waterway Trailhead is on Marina Parkway near the Grissom Parkway overpass across from the rear exit of the Claire Chapin Epps YMCA, and the Two Mile Waterway Trail is open to the public from sunrise to sunset.

The next phase is now in motion because of new residential construction, not in spite of it. A 22-acre gated community with 86 homes was presented to the Myrtle Beach Planning Commission, with the property adjacent to Marina Parkway. Buried in that filing is the piece that matters for people who already live here: the project will also complete a 2-mile trail along the Intracoastal Waterway, accessible to Grande Dunes residents and visitors, finalizing the connection from the Marina all the way down to the YMCA.

Read that sentence again if you are a walker. The trail you take now dead-ends. The trail you will take in a year connects the Marina directly to the YMCA, without crossing 17. That is a genuinely different daily walk.

A Short Drive Redraws The Dining Map

Del Webb Grande Dunes sits inside a five-minute radius of more restaurant openings than any other stretch of the Grand Strand this year. A few worth pinning:

In the Grande Dunes footprint. Cantina Imperfecto, created by the team behind Drift, delivers modern Mexican cuisine with bold flavor combinations in the Grande Dunes area of Myrtle Beach. Same operators, different mood from the marina-side seafood at 357 Raw.

Up Highway 17 in North Myrtle Beach. The longtime Sea Merchants Restaurant building at 1104 Highway 17 S is being gutted and reimagined as White Heron, an upscale coastal seafood restaurant expected in May 2026. If you have driven past that shuttered building wondering what would take it over, that is your answer.

At Broadway at the Beach. Ole Smoky Distillery and Yee-Haw Brewing Co. opened at Broadway at the Beach in May 2026 at 1214 Celebrity Circle, a 40,000-square-foot space functioning simultaneously as a working distillery, a craft brewery, a full-service restaurant, and a live music venue. Head brewer background is local. Brock Kurtzman, well known in local craft beer circles from tenures at New South Brewing and Southern Hops Brewing Company, is guiding a lineup of house beers with names that lean into Carolinas identity, including a mocha white stout named after Blackbeard's ship Queen Anne's Revenge.

Out toward Carolina Forest. Carolina Forest finally has its brewery, and South Coast Beer Project, from the Coastal Concepts Hospitality team behind The Grumpy Monk and The Sneaky Beagle, opened at 5020 Carolina Forest Blvd. with a 9,000-square-foot restaurant, a 20,000-square-foot outdoor beer garden, and a family-friendly vibe. Roughly 15 minutes from your front gate.

None of these are inside Del Webb. That is the point. The community sits at a hinge in the Grand Strand where a short drive in any direction lands you at something that did not exist last summer.

What This Actually Changes About Life Here

Roll it together and a resident's Wednesday looks different than it did a year ago. Morning walk on the Waterway Trail, soon extended past the YMCA. Lunch at 357 Raw on the dock. Late afternoon live music at 357 Brewers next door once it opens. Dinner at the Ocean Club because it happens to be Live Music Wednesday. Home before dark. All of that inside a two-mile radius of a Del Webb driveway.

The 2026 developer roundup put it plainly: Grande Dunes continues to build momentum through a diverse mix of nearly sold-out neighborhoods, active new construction, and exciting launches on the horizon, a community where coastal living and thoughtful planning come together.

That momentum is not abstract. It is a brewery going up on the dock, a chef reworking the menu at the beach, and a trail closing its last mile. For the people who bought early, the community you chose is finally the community you were shown on the site map.

Let's Connect

Whether you already own at Del Webb Grande Dunes and want to talk about what these openings mean for resale positioning, or you are watching the community from out of state and trying to time a move, Brendan D'Anna at BD Palmetto Homes walks these paths, drives these streets, and knows which floor plans look best from the trail side. Reach out when you are ready for a conversation, not a pitch.