THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 28, 1995 TAG: 9511280284
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANCIE LATOUR, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
In this city, where concrete medians and strip malls reign, there's a small battle going on for historic preservation.
Chesapeake residents thought they had blocked a developer's proposal for a drive-through bank and pharmacy on a historic site at the traffic-packed intersection of Battlefield Boulevard and Cedar Road.
Tonight, those residents and the City Council face not only a drive-through center, but possibly another strip shopping mall at the heart of Chesapeake's commercial sprawl.
Council members had denied the developer's permit request Oct. 17. Instead, they vowed to purchase the 3-acre lot, one of the last remaining historical sites associated with the 1775 battle of Great Bridge, the first battle between British and American soldiers on Virginia soil.
Vice Mayor Robert T. Nance Jr. had pledged to find the $1.2 million it would take to buy the land and create the city's first historic preservation district. But after city officials met with developers last week, there was no deal.
``They refused to sell,'' said Mayor William E. Ward of the meeting between the interim city manager, city attorney and economic development head, and Herman A. Hall III, who owns the property. ``They said they were not interested in selling it to the city, only leasing it.''
Leasing the land, city officials learned, would cost the city more than $100,000 every year for as long as Chesapeake wanted it.
That price, Ward said, is too high, even for the sake of preserving history.
``In my mind,'' Ward said, ``it would simply be an unjustifiable expenditure of taxpayer money, given the pressure for schools, parks and roads.''
Many believe the property was the site of the Southern Branch Chapel in 1701, the headquarters for patriot forces who beat back the British in the Great Bridge battle.
Ward, who last month voted to approve the permit for the drive-through center, said the issue remains what it was when he first reviewed it: choosing the lesser of two evils.
To obtain the use permit, the bank and pharmacy would have to be constructed in a colonial style. There would be no such restrictions on a strip mall, which does not require the permit.
According to Hall, his terms with the city have remained consistent.
``We always said that we would give the same options to council that we had been offered in our negotiations with tenants,'' Hall said. Those terms, he said, involved leasing the property, not selling it.
Last month, Hall warned council members that a denial would leave him no choice but to proceed with a strip mall, for which he needs no council approval. He only needs approval to build a drive-through facility.
But some who are reviving the fight to preserve the historical site say those warnings are empty threats.
``The developer wouldn't be back asking council for a permit if the strip mall was worth all that profit,'' said Robert K. Parker. ``It just seems to me they should have taken the money from the city and saved their reputations.''
Parker, 36, is a lifelong resident of Chesapeake and owner of a bicycle shop in Great Bridge.
In his efforts to stave off encroaching development, he and others have filled hundreds of petitions and raised more than $12,000 to contribute to buying the property or maintaining it.
``The developer had given a very strong impression that they would sell it,'' Parker said. ``But I think that they never had any intention of selling it, and they were just jerking people around.''
KEYWORDS: CHESAPEAKE DEVELOPMENT by CNB