THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 12, 1995 TAG: 9503110164
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 09 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
City and federal engineers will push ahead with a design for a hurricane protection plan despite a proposed cutback in funding by President Clinton.
That was the message passed along to the Virginia Beach Resort Area Advisory Commission Thursday during a briefing by the Army Corps of Engineers.
``Virginia Beach and the Norfolk District (of the Army engineers) are proceeding with the project as if it were on schedule,'' said Carl Thoren, an engineer with the city's Public Works Department. ``The corps has funds to finish the design.
``So it's construction money that's the big ticket item and we're trying to get it reinstated in the '96 budget.''
James Creighton, project manager for the corps, said the hurricane protection plan, which has been in the dream stage for 25 years, has undergone several recent changes.
One involves the addition of Oceanfront pumping stations to help the resort and North End drainage systems flush storm water out to sea.
The Corps of Engineers, which originally recommended a gravity system, said the city would have to bear the additional cost of the expensive item.
This elicited a nervous response from advisory commissioner James H. Capps, owner of an Oceanfront hotel at 16th Street, who said bulky pumping stations plunked along or near the 40-block hotel line would be a blight on the recently renovated Boardwalk and stub streets.
Capps urged designers to either place the stations underground or to blend them with the existing beachfront architecture.
A second change in the hurricane protection plan involves the realignment of the seawall from Rudee Inlet to 40th Street.
Jack Kennedy, another federal engineer involved in the project, said the planners intended to ``straighten out'' the present meandering path of the seawall from 2nd Street to 40th Street. To do so, the existing Boardwalk would be extended 12-feet seaward, he said.
For another $100,000 or so to offset the cost of using additional sand fill, the Boardwalk could be widened 20 to 50 feet, depending upon the location.
Existing plans to triple the width of the beach in front of the Boardwalk remain in place.
The advisory commission voted to recommend the additional Boardwalk expansion on the grounds that it would provide more room for strollers and bicyclists in front of the existing hotel line.
The alignment change also has been endorsed by the Resort Leadership Council, an umbrella organization representing Oceanfront hotel, restaurant and retail interests in Virginia Beach.
Yet to be decided in future briefings, said advisory commission Chairman Roger Newill, will be the location of the pumping stations and the construction schedule for the hurricane protection project. Work would take place over a period of two years or more and could disrupt businesses along the resort strip. by CNB