THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 23, 1994 TAG: 9411230486
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB AND ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
The City Council has decided to make an offer to buy Lake Ridge, the 1,200-acre bankrupt development near City Hall, City Council member John D. Moss said Tuesday.
Moss announced the council's plan, which had been decided in a closed-door session earlier in the evening, to express his opposition to it. Despite the supposed secrecy of the executive sessions, Moss said word had leaked out that the council was considering buying the property, whose future as a planned community was doomed by financial and political problems.
``Tonight, City Council informally provided direction to the city manager to bring these negotiations to a conclusion and acquire the property within a dollar threshold subject to council approval,'' Moss said during an open session. ``Council provided this direction without an independent valuation of the property.''
Moss declined to say anything more about the purchase, or to say how much the city is willing to pay for the property.
A development group called Lake Ridge Associates, led by R.G. Moore, the city's biggest and most controversial developer, assembled the property at a cost of $22 million in late 1986 and early 1987. The land is generally believed to have declined in value since then.
Councilman John A. Baum confirmed the council's actions Tuesday night, but he disagreed with Moss' assessment of the proposed purchase.
An independent appraisal would have been a waste of money, Baum said. The property is so encumbered with development restrictions imposed when it was rezoned in 1991 that it would be impossible for an appraiser to tell what the property is worth on the open market. There are no comparable sales of similar property, Baum said.
The council recently made an unsuccessful offer of nearly $15,000 an acre for the nearby Princess Anne Commons site, as the probable location for the proposed new amphitheater.
Baum said it makes sense for the city to buy the Lake Ridge property. If sold piecemeal on the open market, the mix of different zonings and the conditions placed on the land would make coherent development very difficult.
The council is trying to buy the property in part as a possible site for the proposed amphitheater, several community leaders said this week. It may also use the land as a site for golf courses and other recreational uses.
Word about the possible sale has leaked around town. Baum said Moss was angry in part because Virginia Beach Vision, a community group founded by E.E. Brickell - a former schools superintendent - was aware of the possible purchase.
A city purchase would determine the pattern of development in the area for decades.
Most other council members were reluctant Tuesday night to discuss the land transaction, although several expressed annoyance at Moss for making a private conversation public.
City councils are allowed to discuss several topics in private, including land sales, which might be compromised if sellers learn how much the city is willing to pay.
The Lake Ridge property has been tied to City Hall politics for a decade. R.G. Moore bought the core of the 1,200 acres in 1984. In 1986, he joined with some of the city's most prominent business people to form Lake Ridge Associates.
The group included Edward S. Garcia Sr., a developer; Leonard Strelitz, owner of Haynes Furniture; Nancy A. Creech, then a councilwoman; and Ronald I. Dozoretz, of First Hospital Corp. At various times, plans showed a hospital, a shopping mall, an office park, hotels and housing around a golf course.
But the project never got off the ground. After a tremendous political battle, the group got the property rezoned in 1991 - but only after agreeing to pay the cost of roads, schools and other city services.
The property was below the so-called Green Line, the border below which the council had for years refused to allow more growth. So rezoning the land involved a policy decision, about whether the growth of the city should move southward.
Shortly after winning the rezoning, Sovran Bank, now NationsBank, began foreclosure on the property. NationsBank bought the property last spring for $10 million.
Also Tuesday, the City Council voted somewhat reluctantly to withdraw plans for building a movie theater complex at the troubled Corporate Landing office park.
The $4 million, 10- to 14-screen theater was heralded as a life-saver for the city-owned office project, vacant for four years.
But in September, civic leaders came out against the theater, saying it would go against the park's mission to provide jobs.
KEYWORDS: LAKE RIDGE VIRGINIA BEACH CITY COUNCIL
by CNB