Mar. 30--Myrtle Beach's first theme hotel opened this week, setting a new standard for Ocean Boulevard's future while playing on the past. 

Maidens dressed in medieval garb greeted Camelot by the Sea's first guests last weekend at the massive, canary-colored condominium tower at 2000 N. Ocean Blvd. 

The $35 million project by Anderson Family Development, longtime Myrtle Beach hoteliers who own hundreds of rooms on the Boulevard, is lauded as the first step in transforming Ocean Boulevard into a more contemporary, pedestrian- friendly mecca. 

"The beach is maturing and coming out of adolescence," Bert Anderson said. "We're proud to be taking that first step." 

Part of the city's first oceanfront planned unit development, the Camelot has a larger-than-normal, 240-foot-wide lot. A city park is expected to open next door in June. 

The area, including a Breakers condo tower under construction at 21st Avenue North, will have wider sidewalks, landscaping, shops, restaurants and underground instead of overhead utility lines. 

The transformation should be complete in the next couple of years. 

"It's a new identity for Ocean Boulevard," Myrtle Beach city spokesman Mark Kruea said. "I think the city would like to see that face-lift spread north and south." 

Those changes will help turn the Boulevard into an area that will attract locals as well as vacationers, said Martha Hunn, executive director of the Myrtle Beach Area Hospitality Association. 

"Unless you are staying in a hotel, do you ever come down here? There's just not much to make you do that now," she said. 

Patterned after some of the grand mega-hotels in Las Vegas, the 230-unit Camelot introduces the theme concept to the Grand Strand. 

Medieval decorations carry through the lobby, where knights' armor stands beside the entrance, to the condo units, which have custom-made game tables and fantasy-style artwork. 

All 150 employees, from front- desk receptionists to housekeepers, wear Camelot-style costumes. 

Guests pay for the grandeur, with nightly rates ranging from $55 for a studio in winter to $320 for a three- bedroom unit during the peak summer season. 

A one-bedroom unit goes for as much as $168 a night between June and August, $70 higher than Myrtle Beach's $98.07 average daily rate in June 2000, according to the S.C. Parks, Recreation and Tourism department. 

Vacationers want the extra space the condos provide and are willing to pay more for it, Anderson said. Camelot units are an average of 10 percent larger than traditional hotel rooms, he said. 

Tourists also want the amenities such as the lazy river, pools and exercise room, Anderson said. 

"There is that market here," he said. "Myrtle Beach has reached that market." 

A craving for luxury living and vacationing has sparked a wave of high-end development in Myrtle Beach, with million-dollar condos and mini-mansions in the works at such developments as Grande Dunes and Barefoot Resort. 

Along the oceanfront, condo towers are replacing the more modest mom and pop motels. Crews demolished two 40-unit hotels to make way for the Camelot, completed about two months ahead of schedule. 

Some are ready to see the shift, saying the Camelot will set a precedent. 

"I'm sure it will, and maybe it will get rid of some of the old three- and four-story hotels," Gwen Turrieff of Ontario, Canada, said. "It's great to see something different." 

Camelot's high-end offerings and newness are more important than its theme, said Charles Partlow, director of graduate studies at the University of South Carolina's School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management. 

"There is definitely a need in Myrtle Beach for new properties and refurbishment," he said. "If it's a good product, it will sell. They can have whatever theme they want." 

Characters from Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament helped promote the theme during Wednesday's grand opening event. 

Dru Hutchens of Danville, Va., who took pictures of the characters, is anxious to introduce her two grandchildren to Myrtle Beach's evolving atmosphere. 

Hutchens, who has visited Myrtle Beach for 40 years, owns a Camelot unit. 

"It's already changing," Hutchens said. "I think it is magnificent." 

The idea of wider sidewalks and landscaping already has reached to 75th Avenue North, where the Ocean Dunes/Sand Dunes is building similar towers under the city's planned unit development rules. 

"Myrtle Beach is moving right on," Camelot owner James Anderson said. 

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(c) 2001, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.