THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 13, 1994 TAG: 9410130495
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Staff writers Stephanie Stoughton, Mike Knepler, Janie Bryant, Ida Kay
Jordan, Tony Wharton, Debbie Messina, Mary Reid Barrow and Bill Reed
contributed to this report.
LENGTH: Long : 173 lines
Fairwood Homes, Portsmouth - There should have been a sign blinking ``VACANCIES.''
About 375 units had been boarded up as owners prepared for a race track that would have replaced about 900 of the 1,500 low-income rental dwellings.
``Now they're all for rent,'' said James H. Epperson, as he relaxed in his desk chair.
Epperson conceded that the New Kent County site chosen Wednesday was in ``the center of things geographically.''
But, he added, ``Portsmouth badly needs a shot in the arm.''
Epperson, general manager of Fairwood Homes, said the company had always planned to rebuild within 20 years when the properties were purchased in 1984. Those plans got put on hold with the city's quest for the race track.
``For the last five years,'' he said, ``we've been fooling with this.''
Fairwood resident Virgie Canales, who was doing some morning shopping in a Be-Lo that adjoins the homes' rental office, wasn't sorry about the decision.
``I wasn't worried - I was planning on moving anyway,'' she said. ``I didn't really want (Portsmouth) to get the race track. I don't like betting and so forth.''
Canales' neighbor, Gwendolyn Sykes, came around the aisle, a carton of milk and some cakes in her hand.
``It's just a relief that I don't have to worry about getting up and moving,'' Sykes said. ``It would have caused me to have to go through a lot of changes.''
Sykes said she feels bad for the city, because of the economic need for the race track. She has lived in Fairwood Homes with her three children for two years.
``I just have no other choice now,'' she said.
Gygax Avenue, Portsmouth - Alexzina Mitchell, past president of the Fairwood Homes Civic League, had just heard about her neighborhood's reprieve on the noon news.
``Well, in a way it's good, because there are a lot of people who can't afford another home,'' Mitchell said.
But she added: ``It's going to be a loss because of the jobs it could have provided and the revenue.
``There were people who wanted it and people who were going to be displaced,'' she said. ``You win some, you lose some.''
Outside the Virginia Beach Courthouse - A sharp breeze whipped away the cigarette smoke of the small clutch of courthouse employees, shivering a little in the wind. The news their city wasn't getting the track didn't bother them much.
Jo Gaonach and John Rice said they might have dropped a few dollars at the track if it came to Virginia Beach. What about New Kent? They shrugged.
``I don't even go to Norfolk,'' said Gaonach, a deed recorder. ``I'm not going to go to New Kent. Where is it?''
John Rice, of the law department, lives in Virginia Village off General Booth Boulevard, not far from the Beach's proposed track site. He figured the track would have brought a lot more traffic to his neighborhood, but it would have been OK.
``I'm from New England, where there's a horse track or a dog track about every other block,'' he said. ``Horses aren't really my thing, though.
``Now if they'll put a NASCAR track in here, you bet I'll go to that.''
Lake Placid development, Virginia Beach - Nearly spitting distance from the proposed track site, this is the lonely frontier of Virginia Beach development. And Labe Adams thinks that's just fine.
``I personally would move out of the area if they put a track in here,'' said Adams, a plasterer who moved to Mirror Lake Drive five years ago. ``It would bring a lot more traffic in here, just a lot of mess.
``My wife would like it, though. She wouldn't be hard to find; she'd be over there ripping up her tickets.''
Julius Scissors, Virginia Beach - Pattie Brockley stopped sweeping up hair around the barber chairs long enough to listen to the news that jockeys probably wouldn't be dropping in for a quick trim at this hair salon at Dam Neck Road and London Bridge Boulevard.
She turned to another woman on the telephone: ``They're not putting the track here, what do you think?'' The woman shrugged, said, ``Good.''
Brockley started sweeping again and said her own family used to raise and show horses. She likes them and would like to take her children to see some horses.
But of the track, she said, ``I don't think it would have attracted the kind of people we want around here. I've been around that gambling sort of thing before, in Atlantic City. Initially it might be a good thing, but not in the end.''
Oceana Naval Air Station stables - When a new horse arrives here it's placed in a holding pen separate from the other animals, for health reasons, but also to adjust to the screaming jets.
``It takes them about a day to get used to it, then they're fine,'' said Karen Benham, a stable hand who cares for about 120 horses at the jet base. ``The high-pitched noise pierces their ears a little. They get just a little hyper and they get to running around.''
Benham, who's been around horses most of her life, said she thinks racehorses ``see a lot more confusion and noise in their lives, so planes wouldn't bother them very much.''
Jet noise from Oceana was one of the concerns the racing commission listed in rejecting the Virginia Beach proposal.
Spokesman Troy Snead said Oceana had no official reaction.
``The race track wouldn't present any problem at the base at all,'' he said. ``Most of the people at Oceana would have liked to have it here. It would have given more recreational possibilities for the people who live and work here.''
Holly Ridge Manor, Virginia Beach - Blue Boy nuzzled Jacqueline Rountree affectionately Wednesday afternoon. The wild mustang she adopted and had shipped to Virginia Beach from Nevada had grown tame and even spoiled in the serene setting of this farm with white fences and green fields off Seaboard Road.
In just a little more than two years, Rountree and her husband, Sonny, have turned their farm into a picture-perfect facility. They raise 11 horses of their own and also provide training and boarding facilities for others.
Although the Rountrees have a large indoor arena and other state-of-the-art facilities, the couple didn't have the race track in mind when they developed their farm. On the other hand, when they also built Holly Ridge Manor Veterinary Medical Center on the premises with one of the only large-animal surgical suites this side of Charlottesville, the track was definitely part of their thinking.
``We were already planning on putting in a whirlpool for the horses,'' Jacqueline Rountree said.
``I know tomorrow I'll be really disappointed,'' she added. ``It hasn't sunk in yet. That was one of the best kept secrets in all of politics!''
Alexanders Corner, Portsmouth - If anybody stood to make money off the race track, it was Matthew ``Monty'' Russo, who owns a pawn shop near the proposed track site.
But Russo, a former produce wholesaler, is ``just as glad'' Portsmouth was not chosen.
``I've never been sold on horse racing for Portsmouth,'' he said. ``It would have been too much of an investment. It wouldn't make money. I think the first track in Virginia is going broke, wherever it is.''
Russo believes riverboat gambling would be a better choice.
``I think Portsmouth would do wonderful with riverboat gambling because the water is right downtown,'' he said. ``And you don't have the same investment in that.''
Gallop Bus Lines, Virginia Beach - Scott Merriman thought it would have nice if the state's first racing track went to Virginia Beach or Portsmouth.
``I'm sorry we don't have it,'' Merriman said as he rocked back in his desk chair. That was Merriman talking as a local resident.
Now, hear him as sales manager for Gallop Bus Lines, the largest local operator of charter buses.
``As far as a business decision goes, my ability to generate more revenue probably is going to be better with it there'' in New Kent County, Merriman said.
Only hours after the announcement, Merriman was doing the mental arithmetic.
Round trip for a day at the races, maybe $6 to $10, including the entry fee. Tracks often give steep discounts for groups, said Merriman, whose company already provides charters to other East Coast race tracks.
The target audience would be local folks. Senior citizens are a likely market, especially if the track opens a nice restaurant.
All in all, charter bus trips to the New Kent County race track could prove worthwhile, Merriman decided. ILLUSTRATION: MORT FRYMAN/staff
Sonny Rountree and his wife, Jacqueline, of Virginia Beach, built a
veterinary hospital thinking of racehorses. ``I know tomorrow I'll
be really disappointed,'' Jacqueline Rountree said.
MARK MITCHELL/staff
Gwendolyn Sykes, who lives in Portsmouth's Fairwood Homes, said she
was glad a race track wouldn't displace 900 of the 1,500 homes so
she wouldn't have to move. But she also said that there was an
economic need for the money that racing could have brought in.
KEYWORDS: HORSE RACING RACE TRACK by CNB