THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 4, 1994 TAG: 9410040415
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By MYLENE MANGALINDAN AND ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
A drab section of Granby Street, once the commercial heart of Norfolk, will be demolished starting today when Tidewater Community College begins to make way for a 5,000-student downtown campus.
It's all part of a $24 million plan that officials hope will bring students strolling along Granby, recharging their minds and a tired retail district.
The home for the new school will be sprinkled in buildings along Granby and the side streets of Market and Freemason - a total of 185,000 square feet.
Barr Brothers Jewelers and Frankie's Got It record shop, two empty stores next to a vacant parking lot at the corner of College Place and Granby will be torn down. A public ceremony, including a keynote speech by Norfolk Mayor Paul D. Fraim, will precede the demolition.
TCC's Granby Street campus has been heralded as a key link in a downtown plan to revive an ailing corridor of vacant storefronts and buildings. Today's demolition ushers in an academic village concept based on a new building in place of the empty jeweler's and record stores, and a renovated Woolworth's, Loews Theater and Smith & Welton building across the street.
Construction of the four-building downtown campus will last two years and cost $18 million. The state will contribute $15 million. The private sector will provide an additional $3 million, said Susan Slayton, campaign director for the Norfolk center.
Turner Construction Co. of Arlington, and Curtex Construction of Norfolk will handle the construction. Two architectural firms are working on the campus and building designs: UDC of Pittsburgh, and Williams Tazewell and Associates in Norfolk.
The new building that replaces the record store and jewelry shop will house science and student services departments.
The renovated Woolworth's building, at Freemason and Monticello, will house a culinary arts lab, computer labs and classrooms.
The renovated theater, on Granby, will include a large lecture hall with a teleconferencing center, computer labs, lecture halls and an Educational Opportunities Center,
readya federally funded program for all higher education institutions in the region.
The former Smith & Welton building will be converted into a library including offices, classrooms and other facilities. The old Smith & Welton Annex will be replaced with a landscaped reading garden.
The city of Norfolk will contribute public improvements worth $6.5 million. Those improvements include the development of College Place, a park area on the corner of College Place and Granby Street; College Plaza, another tree-lined plaza between the Downtown Athletic Center and the existing Smith & Welton building.
Start-up costs covering the preliminary ground-clearing and other work total $2.5 million, Slayton said.
TCC president Larry L. Whitworth estimated the college will inject between $8 million and $12 million into the Norfolk economy after opening. He said $5 million will be retained locally each year because TCC students tend to stay in Hampton Roads. The center will open in July 1996 with a $5 million operating budget for 100 faculty members, staff and 5,000 students, said John Massey, director of the project development. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
STAFF
TCC CONSTRUCTION GETS UNDERWAY
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
by CNB