MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) -- Visitors to South Carolina's Grand Strand can see there's a building boom along the coast and now figures from the U.S. Census Bureau confirm that.

The Sun News of Myrtle Beach reports that nearly 64,000 units including houses, condominiums and apartments, were built in the area between 2000 and 2010. That's almost double the number built the previous decade.

There are now almost 186,000 housing units in Horry County. The county population is about 270,000.

Hoffman Homes vice president Greg Sisson says the 64,000 seems like even more because many of the units were built during the three-year period at the height of the real estate boom.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)