THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 28, 1994 TAG: 9409280471
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines
What's in a name? Is it a marketing tool for selling homes? Or a vehicle that carries the history of a place and the people who have lived there?
The City Council decided the latter Tuesday when they urged the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority to drop the suburban sounding name, Stonebridge Crossing, for a planned redevelopment project. It urged the NRHA to keep the name Liberty Park, that of the former public housing project on the site.
The 104-home project is set for construction on the west side of Ballentine Boulevard. The project is the next phase of the Middletown Arch development, begun in 1986 in the historically black areas around Church Street.
Councilman Paul Riddick asked David Rice, the NRHA's executive director who had finished a presentation on the new project, why white communities seemed to keep their names after redevelopment but black communities did not.
``In Ghent and other parts of town, the names are kept,'' Riddick said. ``I think we need to stop just forgetting about things that mean something in the black community.''
Liberty Park was built as wartime housing in World War II. The city bought the project after the war and converted it to public housing.
Councilman G. Conoly Phillips reminded Riddick that the NRHA has three minority members.
``Well, I think we have the three wrong ones at this point,'' Riddick replied.
The NRHA members who are black are Johnnie Q. Branch, George W.C. Brown Jr. and Shirley A. Freeman. The City Council appointed all of them but none since Riddick was elected in 1992.
The NHRA has final authority over the project's name.
Council supported Riddick and asked Rice to tell the NRHA it prefers the original name. Rice said the board would take it up at its next meeting, Oct. 10.
Changing the name could hurt the success of the project, Rice said. The NRHA paid consultants to come up with a name. He noted that the project's planned bridge across a retention pond has been prettied up to justify the project's name. The bridge would be built with cobblestones and ornamented posts. A marketing campaign has been designed around the name Stonebridge Crossing, Rice said.
``We ask the people for their best advice, my inclination is to follow it,'' Rice said. But Riddick said he would have to talk with the NRHA board members.
In other actions Tuesday the City Council gave its preliminary approval to the design of the new MacArthur Center shopping mall scheduled to be built downtown. Officials said that Council would vote again on the project when the design is finalized.
KEYWORDS: NORFOLK CITY COUNCIL LIBERTY PARK STONEBRIDGE CROSSING by CNB