Retirement Fun in the South Carolina Sun Is Corporation’s Latest Goal : Hilton Head: The centerpiece will be a multimillion-dollar town square. Recreation ranges from boccie to ballroom dancing, putting greens to pools, and three 18-hole golf courses.

BLUFFTON, S.C. —  Dozens of workers scurry under gray skies on a site edged with tall slash pines as the largest residential development in South Carolina history, Sun City-Hilton Head, rises from the coastal lowlands.

Sun City-Hilton Head, Del Webb Corp.’s first retirement community in the East, will have 8,600 homes and is expected to bring about 20,000 people to the area within two decades.

In effect, the Arizona company is creating South Carolina’s newest city, about two-thirds the size of Hilton Head, on 5,700 acres. The $1.3-billion development is on the mainland about a dozen miles from the resort island.

“We’re selling a lifestyle here. You get a whole community,” not just a house in a subdivision, general manager Dennis Wilkins said. He previously managed Sun City-Tucson, one of six Del Webb retirement communities in the West.

The centerpiece will be a multimillion-dollar town square with recreational offerings from boccie to ballroom dancing, putting greens to pools. Plans call for three 18-hole golf courses.

“There are a lot of people on the East Coast who know Del Webb but they may not understand what a Sun City is,” Wilkins said. “It’s an active adult community, not a convalescent center.”

Webb, who died 20 years ago, was an internationally known builder and one-time owner of the New York Yankees whose company also built the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, Anaheim Stadium and Madison Square Garden.

The first day sales opened at Sun City-Hilton Head last November, 25 homes worth $4.1 million were sold. Since Del Webb selected the South Carolina site a year ago, there have been 9,000 inquiries.

“We’ve been looking for the right community and this fit,” said Mervin Wallace. He and his wife bought a house on opening day. “I play a lot of golf and my wife’s an avid bridge player,” he said.

The couple had retired to Florida from the Northeast but wanted to move closer to their children, who live in South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia.

Sun City-Hilton Head’s first-day sales did not approach the 237 homes sold the first weekend when the first Sun City opened in Arizona 35 years ago. But the concept of production housing is new to South Carolina.

Del Webb sells the lot, then builds the house for prices ranging from $90,000 to $200,000, although bigger lots and added amenities can raise the price. Buyers select a lot, pick out a house from a number of floor plans and choose their fixtures. It’s one-stop shopping.

Workers are busy now on model homes and the 14,000-square-foot sales center. When construction reaches full speed, 30 subcontractors will start each day on two homes, which take about three months to complete.

At least one resident of each home must be over 55.

Officials estimate that the development will mean 1,900 new and spinoff jobs. Residents will pump an estimated $1 billion a year into the economy.

Sun City is attracting interest from other developers thinking of following Del Webb’s lead, according to Curt Cottle, a state Development Board spokesman.

“This should do for the retirement industry kind of what BMW did for manufacturing,” he said. BMW’s decision to build its first North American plant in the state has attracted dozens of automobile-related industries.

But the burgeoning growth brings concern in an area of scattered farms and small hamlets nestled off meandering tidal marshes, though just a few miles from Interstate 95.

Developers intend to build a nearby golf course community and a mall. The Beaufort County Council has slapped a six-month moratorium on new building permits for the area. It wants time to hire additional planners and review new development plans.