THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 17, 1996 TAG: 9604170370
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 114 lines
Plans to transform the Pavilion Convention Center and six adjoining blocks into a national meeting mecca and upscale commercial corridor got a tepid reception Tuesday from a City Council wary of looming budget battles and a pending election.
The proposal, dubbed the Combined Oceanfront Renewal Enterprise (CORE), would cost an estimated $161 million, council members were told.
The tab would include land acquisition, tripling the size of the existing 19th Street convention facility and starting up a transit system aimed at moving conventioneers to and from beachfront hotels.
Council members received an informal briefing on the concept from Roger Newill, chairman of the Resort Area Advisory Commission, a citizens panel responsible for dreaming up big projects that could boost city tourism.
From the outset, council response was subdued, apparently influenced by two issues of immediate concern: a race for three council seats in the May 7 election and a decision on a proposed $897.8 million municipal budget, which recommends a 3.2 percent real estate tax hike.
Newill's argument that the Pavilion development was needed to spur year-round resort business - and possibly attract a major convention hotel to the Oceanfront - went unheeded.
Council members Louisa M. Strayhorn, Louis R. Jones and Barbara M. Henley focused instead on issues such as a proposed resort transit system, building a convention center nearer the Oceanfront and the folly of publicly airing big dreams at budget time.
Strayhorn questioned the city's willingness to start up its own mini-transit system. ``If we don't put the money up, it's not going to happen,'' she said.
Jones questioned the logic of expanding the Pavilion, a convention facility that opened in 1980, when a bigger and better one could be built closer to the Oceanfront. ``It may be worth spending $20 million more to make a successful operation out of it,'' Jones said, then asked,``How much more business would you create (where it is) rather than building it closer to the Oceanfront?''
Henley worried aloud that the public was becoming restive by plans for renovating Pacific Avenue and expanding the Pavilion at a time when municipal budgeting and a pending tax increase were foremost on their minds.
Seeing Pavilion plans in the newspaper concerned her, Henley said, adding, ``I just hope that we're having a nice little conceptual presentation.''
Newill called the Pavilion expansion plans ``the big rock'' in the city's tourism development strategy. The issue has simmered for five years, he said, and the question now is not how, but ``when can we do it?''
CORE, largely Newill's brainchild, would require funneling all remaining resort improvement funding into one project. The $161 million price tag is a big leap from the original $97 million Tourism Growth Investment Fund programs the advisory commission created six years ago.
TGIF is fed by special hotel, restaurant taxes and fees, and has financed the 10-year facelift of Atlantic Avenue. It is partially funding the $35 million Virginia Marine Science Museum expansion and the construction of a $17 million amphitheater.
Funding for the Pavilion expansion was sidetracked more than a year ago when the City Council decided to reroute $35 million in TGIF cash to help fund the federally backed Hurricane Protection Plan. The plan, better known on the resort strip as the ``seawall project,'' is designed to protect Oceanfront property from Rudee Inlet to Fort Story from major Atlantic storms. Federal funds will cover 65 percent of the estimated $100 million cost.
Bids on the first phase are due in June. Construction on the first eight blocks of the project, from Rudee Inlet to 8th Street, are to start in October.
Despite the rerouting of TGIF money, Newill insists the city still can pursue the Pavilion expansion. CORE could be financed through existing TGIF levies in 15 years, he said.
Tourism enhancement plans now on the table - such as the beautification of Pacific Avenue and a number of smaller ideas - could be compressed or delayed to permit the funding of the bigger project.
Newill and advisory commission members wanted their CORE game plan to go before the City Council as a starting point for public discussion, but the uneasy political climate at City Hall could delay it indefinitely. ILLUSTRATION: Staff illustration by Robert D. Voros
Pavilion Development Plan
[Sketch detailing Pavilion project]
Graphic
COST OF CORE
CORE would require funneling all remaining resort improvement
funding into one project.
The $161 million price tag is a big leap from the original $97
million Tourism Growth Investment Fund programs the advisory
commission created six years ago.
WHAT IS CORE? CORE is a new tourism investment strategy for
Virginia Beach for the next decade and it would cost an estimated
$161 million to complete. Basically, it calls for:
Hiring a consultant to do a market analysis and a transportation
and parking study of the resort district.
Tripling the size of the Pavilion Convention Center and adding
parking garages.
Developing a commercial corridor from the Pavilion east to the
oceanfront. It would be two blocks wide, from 19th to 21st streets
and six blocks long, from Parks to Pacific avenues.
Starting a resort transit system that would operate on a loop
from the Cavalier Hotel to the Virginia Marine Science Museum to the
south, with a westward dip to the Pavilion Convention Center.
Paying for the entire project over the next 20 years through
existing Tourism Growth Investment Fund levies, a fund pool fed by
special taxes on resort hotels and restaurants and an array of
resort franchise and amusement fees.
KEYWORDS: COMBINED OCEANFRONT RENEWAL ENTERPRISE VIRGINIA BEACH PAVILION
EXPANSION TOURISM by CNB