THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 10, 1996 TAG: 9603080255
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 09 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
Is anybody out there interested in building championship caliber golf courses on the 1,200-acre Lake Ridge property?
If so, the City Council wants to know - soon.
On Tuesday, council members told City Manager James K. Spore to seek proposals from golf professionals nationwide about building the project.
The push comes a month after a city-hired consultant released a report recommending the construction of at least five top-of-the-line public golf courses to put Virginia Beach on the map as a major East Coast golf destination.
The firm, PKF Consulting of Alexandria, also recommends other ways the city could attract investors to build quality courses in Virginia Beach, including the easing of zoning and permitting procedures that now effectively block residential development from the undeveloped southern area of the city.
Loosening the strictures would allow future developers to build ancillary single-family housing or resort hotel projects designed to make the golf course projects more profitable.
PKF offered other suggestions as well, but none aroused a more prickly response than the one uttered Tuesday by Councilwoman Barbara S. Henley, who represents rural Pungo Borough.
``I was really disturbed by some of the recommendations in the plan - recommended changes in zoning to accommodate golf courses,'' she said.
``I'm just not comfortable with this, because most of it is in an agricultural district and a golf housing project is not agricultural.''
In the informal portion of Tuesday's council session, Henley said the recommendations would result in the extension of sewer and water lines into an area south of the ``green line'' or Princess Anne Road. This is an area that an earlier panel of City Council members had declared off limits to residential development.
Residential and commercial interests would surely follow extended utility lines into the rural region, she argued.
Henley cautioned council members against taking immediate action to establish golf courses on the city-owned Lake Ridge property along Princess Anne Road between Princess Anne Park and the Municipal Center. An advisory committee, formed in November by the council to study possible Lake Ridge uses, is slated to return in late March with a list of recommendations.
So far, Henley advised council members that the Lake Ridge committee already has received a long list of requests. Various groups want to set aside portions of the property for golf courses, Little League fields, an equestrian center and horse paths and a soccer stadium complex for a professional team. A 20,000-seat amphitheater is already under construction on a corner of the tract.
Councilman Linwood O. Branch III contends that requesting proposals for golf course development was strictly a strategy to gauge interest in the Lake Ridge property among professionals in the golf course business.
The proposals would be geared strictly to the Lake Ridge property, he said.
PKF Consulting identified 51 potential sites in Virginia Beach, many of them in parcels of 150 acres or more in partially wooded areas. Some of those sites lie south of the green line.
Excluding outlays for land, the estimated cost of building new courses - either upscale or signature - would range from $6.5 million to $10.2 million each. This includes clubhouses and other amenities.
The projected impact on the local economy, with all five courses in operation, would be $23.9 million in new revenues per year, consultants say. The new income would generate about $1.8 million in sales and amusements taxes. by CNB