THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 31, 1996 TAG: 9607310474
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 60 lines
Huntersville business owners and residents on Tuesday expressed their fears about the future of their neighborhood, which is trying to adjust to the widening of its main thoroughfare.
The state has begun contacting owners of commercial buildings and some homes, mostly along the east side of Church Street, in preparation for condemning them and tearing them down to make way for the $11.5 million project.
Under the plan, Church Street will be widened to four lanes from two, from Goff Street north to Granby Street. The plan bills the corridor as a new landscaped commuter gateway into the downtown.
Tuesday's outpouring was just what planners said they wanted from the public hearing: input on a vision for the neighborhood after the road is expanded.
Folks told city officials they want their businesses relocated, more parking to make up for the on-street spaces that will be lost, and a good mix of community-friendly businesses and homes.
Planners listened and said they would come back to the community with several alternative plans. If none of those suit, they'll go back to the drawing boards yet again.
City officials want the neighborhood to be a happily revitalized one, said Barry Long, spokesman for UDA Architects, the Pittsburgh firm hired by the city to develop a plan for the neighborhood.
The Virginia Department of Transportation project is to be completed in the year 2000, said Acquanetta Ellis, spokeswoman for Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority.
When the neighborhood plan meets with the approval of the community, officials said, it will go to City Council for approval as an amendment to the master plan.
``Make it unique,'' said Yvonne Watkins, 46, a Church Street businesswoman. ``This is the model that will set the tone for everything else'' in Norfolk neighborhood preservation.
Junius Thompson, 54, a Church Street barber, said that he worried about the future because of the past. ``They'll leave white business and take out black businesses,'' he said. ``You just don't know what's gone on here for 30 years.''
But Long reassured him, saying, ``Norfolk recognizes that its strength is its communities'' and wants ``a happy balance between downtown and the neighborhoods.''
Lamarr Brown, 42, whose business was moved from the southern portion of the project area, said that he and other businessmen had been promised business loans and never got them.
``You take houses and land from people,'' he said to Long.
``Tell them now'' what you want, he told the crowd of about 40, ``or you won't be able to do it later.'' MEMO: HEARING TODAY
Norfolk planners will hold a public hearing today to get opinions on
the future of Church Street from businesses in the midtown industrial
area. The meeting will be at 8:30 a.m. at the Spaghetti Warehouse, 1900
Monticello Ave. ILLUSTRATION: Map by CNB