THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 15, 1996 TAG: 9605150377
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
The City Council on Tuesday approved plans to develop the first multi-story parking garage at the resort, a $7.2 million structure that would be built by private capital and leased for daily public use.
First, the council approved the closure of Eighth Street, between Pacific and Atlantic avenues.
Then members approved a 20-year agreement with the developer that would allow the city to use the soon-to-be constructed three-story building for parking.
Lease terms call for the city to pay $16-million during a 20-year period and keep any and all of the parking proceeds.
Doug Ellis, a principal in the Ellis-Gibson Development Co. - part of an investment group - said the parking garage would occupy the block between Eighth and Ninth streets, and provide 610 spaces for public use.
The ground floor would be given to resort hotelier Vern Burlage, who owns the tract and who is expected to lease 10,000 square feet of Atlantic Avenue frontage for retail use.
He would retain 225 ground-level parking spaces for use in connection with his Oceanfront businesses.
Closure of Eighth Street would provide Burlage with additional parking spaces that would be lost to him through garage construction.
Construction should begin in October, Ellis said, when the property is cleared and graded. The building should be ready for business by summer of 1997.
The development would provide the city with its first municipal, multi-level parking structure at the Oceanfront.
It would offer visitors an alternative to a hodge podge of metered on-street parking and private and municipal lots stretching three miles from Rudee Inlet to 42nd Street.
These spaces come at a premium from May through September, the height of tourist season, but are readily available - and free - during the winter and early spring months.
The city already operates four ground-level municipal lots at Fourth, 19th and 25th streets during the summer and early fall.
A fifth lot at 31st Street is now being leased by Starship Ice, an ice skating rink franchise with headquarters in Richmond.
The Eighth Street project comes when a recently concluded Pacific Avenue Corridor Study recommends dressing up Pacific Avenue, slowing down traffic and encouraging visitors to park their cars and either ride Oceanfront trolleys or walk to resort strip destinations of their choice.
Ellis said effort has been made to fit the parking garage into the beautification plans by hiring Burrell Saunders, of the CMSS architectural firm of Virginia Beach, to design and landscape it.
Councilman Linwood O. Branch III called the private-public venture ``an innovative way to'' provide needed public parking at the Oceanfront.
A planned resort parking survey has yet to be undertaken, said Henry Ruiz, who heads the city's Parking Systems Management office. The study was designed to determine what sort of parking resources are available to accommodate visitors during the tourist season. ILLUSTRATION: Map
VP
Drawing
Virginia Beach City Council approved a proposal for the first
multi-story parking garage on the Oceanfront Tuesday. The $7.2
million garage, shown in this drawing, would be between Eighth and
Ninth streets.
by CNB