THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 14, 1995 TAG: 9507130154
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
The last phase of the Atlantic Avenue streetscape project - a 10-year undertaking that so far has cost about $35 million - will begin in October.
Basically, it entails ironing out a tangled and dangerous merger of Atlantic and Pacific avenues at 42nd Street and dressing up that end of the resort strip with landscaping and special lighting and paving treatments.
The cost of the project, which extends from 40th to 45th streets, is an estimated $3.2 million.
City Council members were briefed Tuesday at an informal session on the last of the Atlantic Avenue beautification work, which began in 1986 with a ``demonstration'' project between 21st and 22nd streets.
City Engineer John Herzke, who conducted the Tuesday briefing, said tentative plans call for realigning Atlantic Avenue to join Pacific Avenue at 40th Street in a traditional T-intersection, complete with traffic lights and pedestrian crosswalks.
The city is negotiating with Cavalier Hotel owners to swap about 21,900 square feet of property to make the plan work, Herzke said.
Atlantic Avenue would swing just north and west of Oceans condominium and through the existing Cavalier parking lot sandwiched between Atlantic and Pacific avenues. The existing section of Atlantic fronting the Cavalier Oceanfront Hotel would be deeded to the Cavalier to consolidate its parking.
Once the job is finished, sometime in May 1996, city officials foresee continued beautification work down the length of Pacific Avenue from 42nd Street to the foot of the Rudee Inlet Bridge.
Like the Atlantic Avenue improvements, it is being done to stimulate tourism. The project is included in a $93 million Tourism Growth Investment Fund initiative approved by the City Council in 1991. The initiative calls for the construction of a 20,000-seat amphitheater, expansion of the Virginia Marine Science Museum and the Pavilion Convention Center, construction of several golf courses and the revitalization of the Boardwalk. Several of those projects are now under way.
The proposed Pacific Avenue facelift has yet to get the blessing of the Resort Area Advisory Commission, a citizens panel appointed in 1983 to oversee tourism-related improvements and activities in Virginia Beach.
Some commission members feel that development of property near the Pavilion Convention Center on 19th Street, the intersection of Laskin Road and Baltic Avenue and the 17th Street corridor to the Oceanfront should take precedence over the Pacific Avenue renovation.
Nevertheless, the city has hired the Virginia Beach engineering firm of Langley and McDonald to study the scope and cost of beautifying the three-mile strip in much the same way Atlantic was redone. ILLUSTRATION: Rerouting Atlantic Avenue
STAFF MAP
by CNB