THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 13, 1995 TAG: 9510120140
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Beth Barber
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
Five years ago, the debate about 31st Street's undeveloped 300 feet of oceanfront was over the city's developing a pricey hotel-convention center there. The ultimate answer was no.
Now, staff writer Bill Reed reported in The Beacon last week, this plot is at the top, so to speak, of ambitious plans for ``Ocean Square,'' an upscale commercial redevelopment of upper 31st Street.
Let's hope something spurs interest in this acre-or-so plot that separates Atlantic Avenue from the Atlantic Ocean. The city's Industrial Development Authority bought it in 1988 for $3.5 million. At least that much is still owed on it, first by the IDA and now by city taxpayers. Why?
The IDA is an independent city agency. Council appoints its members. Its official mission, according to its '93-'94 Annual Report, is ``to facilitate the expansion of the tax base through increased business investment.'' According to its '93 and '94 financial statements, the IDA is an enterprise fund, the first intention of which is this: ``that the costs of providing goods and services to the general public on a continuing basis be financed or recovered primarily through user charges.'' Best I can tell, that means the IDA, not the city, should mostly pay for the IDA.
The authority reportedly figured to sell or rent the 31st Street lot to some hotel-convention business with a vast vision for this vast ocean vista, and a vast purse to match.
The authority seems to have hit the '80s vast-vision hotelry at its trough, not its peak.
According to published reports, the payingest use for this IDA plot has been as a parking lot, bringing in some $70,000 a year. That's well short of what the IDA owed on it - $30,000 a month, including $200,000 a year in interest. A while back, the city had to take over the payments on this parcel, among other IDA debts.
Most recently, the lot was operated by Virginia Beach Events Unlimited, the local nonprofit outfit that put on fireworks and such mainly at the Oceanfront. VBEU paid the IDA $70,000 a year and kept any revenue parking brought in above that. When the city took over the IDA's note, VBEU paid the city the $70,000, and kept any excess over. That arrangement ended after VBEU lost the city events contract last year. Now the city operates it as a parking lot.
This year, Mr. Reed reports, the IDA is pursuing the city's takeover of this loser lot in addition to the debt. The development authority, quit of this burden, could move on to another. The city would . . . well, what, besides park cars on it? Prettify it and hope to peddle it to all those investors drawn by that newest vast vision for the area, Ocean Square.
Unfortunately the only purse to match is still the city taxpayers'. by CNB