THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 9, 1995 TAG: 9501090057
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 122 lines
Even though it may have landed its first tenant after almost half a decade of sitting vacant, the Corporate Landing industrial park still has an image problem.
``I think we ought to blacktop it and paint a white line down the middle so it looks more like the skunk it really is,'' said one council member despite voting last week to meet the demands of Al-Anon Family Services Inc., the likely first tenant.
The council voted 7-4 Tuesday to ask the General Assembly to give Al-Anon tax-exempt status. If approved and if Al-Anon locates there, the city will earn no property tax on the site.
Officials do not agree on what the future will bring for the city's least successful business park. Some say its past will continue to doom it; others believe this first agreement will set a bad precedent; and others assert that the deal is the first step toward proving the project's long-term worth.
Launched by the Virginia Beach Development Authority in 1988, there was little doubt the park would be the agency's next great triumph.
The authority - an independent agency whose members are appointed by City Council - already had built the Lynnhaven Industrial Park, the Airport Industrial Park, Little Creek Industrial Park and Oceana West Corporate Park, which includes Lynnhaven Mall.
Oceana West was almost full, and the development authority wanted to find another large chunk of land it could develop to help lure businesses. Authority members were planning for the future, said Andrew S. Fine, a developer who was on the authority when the new industrial park opened in 1990.
No one knew then the bottom would drop out of the real estate market, and that the $50,000 the authority paid per acre soon would seem ridiculous.
The authority's mandate is to increase the city's tax base by developing industrial parks. It pays for those projects by selling bonds, selling the property to businesses and acquiring loans from the city.
It takes credit for being involved in more than half of the city's office and industrial development projects.
City Councilman Louis R. Jones, who voted against last week's measure, is critical of the potential sale of 3.5 acres to Al-Anon, a support organization for families and friends of alcoholics. Under the proposed deal, the authority will lose two thirds of the money it invested in the site, Jones said.
The authority is willing to sell the land for about $25,000 an acre, according to a Dec. 5 confidential staff memo addressed to City Manager James K. Spore, and obtained by The Virginian-Pilot.
At that price, counting what the authority owes and how much it already has spent building infrastructure on the site, the agency will lose more than $300,000, Jones said. The city's department of economic development estimates the Al-Anon headquarters, which is expected to employ 60 people, would have an economic impact on the city of about $30,000 a year.
``I'm not opposed to providing incentives, but I think that there has to be some reasonable payback, and I just don't think this is reasonable,'' Jones said.
Most other council members don't like the deal, either, but they believe it's as good as the city is going to get.
``I think the thing to do now is to do the best with what we have,'' Vice Mayor W.D. Sessoms said. ``We acknowledge there's a problem, and this is a way to start making the problem a little bit smaller.''
Trouble selling the land is only the latest in a long series of problems.
The authority bought part of the land in secret in 1988 - a parcel that turned out to be restricted for use only as a horse farm. The realtor who sold the land told the authority he didn't know about the deed restrictions. But the same man, Samuel W. Scott Jr., had sold the property seven years earlier to a city resident who wanted it because of the restrictions. Scott has said that the earlier sale had been arranged by an agent who worked for him and didn't tell him about the restrictions.
Mark R. Wawner, acting director of the department of economic development, said bad memories of Corporate Landing will disappear when he lands a big tenant. In the last four years, he said, his department has come close to luring five major corporations to the complex. He's negotiating now with a sixth, Wawner added.
``We haven't hit the home run yet, but maybe on the sixth time we will,'' he said. ``Without (Corporate Landing), we would not be able to even make a proposal to many of the clients that we're seeing coming through the state.''
And when that happens, Wawner predicts the complaints and second-guessing will stop.
``Given five more years,'' he said, ``I think you'll see a totally different picture.'' ILLUSTRATION: 1992 File Photo
The Corporate Landing Industrial Park, launched with great hope, has
lain unused for almost five years.
Color staff map
Area shown: New Al-Anon headquarters
Staff graphic by Steve Stone
Virginia Beach Industrial Parks
[Name of Industrial Park]
[Date acquired]
Employment]
[Purchase Price or original assessed value]
[Current assessed value]
[For complete text of figures, see microfilm.]
THE AL-ANON PROPOSAL
No taxes
Al-Anon Family Services Inc. wants to locate in the park.
If Al-Anon wins tax-exempt status from the General Assembly, the
city will earn no property taxes from the agency's site.
No profit
The Virginia Beach Development Authority paid $50,000 an acre for
Corporate Landing.
The authority is now willing to sell 3.5 acres to Al-Anon for
about $25,000 an acre.
No gain
Accounting for past costs, the development authority will lose
more than $300,000 on the land deal.
KEYWORDS: CORPORATE LANDING VIRGINIA BEACH INDUSTRIAL PARK by CNB