THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 12, 1996 TAG: 9610120317
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MYLENE MANGALINDAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CAPE CHARLES LENGTH: 108 lines
The antique street lamps glow an inviting green here, not the blazing yellow of the anti-crime lights in the big city. A large American flag flies outside the Parsons Building on Mason Avenue, the town's main drag. Residents greet one another by name and leave their strollers outside the store when they go shopping. And they still gather at the corner of Strawberry and Mason to chat about the latest news.
These days, the latest news is really the only news in Cape Charles: A Virginia Beach developer has bought nearly 2,000 acres around the town from Brown & Root, the big Texas company that owned it for more than 20 years and made a lot of promises. What residents see now is new promise - from Richard Foster and his company, Baymark Construction - and plans to build a retirement community and golf course. It is the promise of a historic town's rebirth. And the promise of jobs.
Northampton County is one of the poorest counties in Virginia, with an unemployment rate of 6.5 percent in August. Work for many is seasonal, based on harvests and the processing schedules at the Tyson and Perdue chicken plants. Commercial fishing, once a major industry, is struggling.
``There's nothing here to create jobs for anybody,'' said Thomas Chester, a part-time farmhand and laborer who was standing at the corner with some buddies.
Many estimate Cape Charles' population at about 1,200 - and dropping. They say that young people are forced to leave to find work elsewhere.
Elizabeth Mills, a 90-year-old, lifelong town resident, hopes the development means a revival of Cape Charles' glory days in the '30s when commerce hummed and ferries transported sailors and tourists to town.
Many credit the ferry with Cape Charles' rise as a tourist destination. Sailors and soldiers caught the train north after arriving by ferry from Norfolk. Visitors shopped along Mason Avenue for the day. Lines of waiting ferry passengers stretched into the town, providing peanut and lunchbox vendors plenty of captive business.
Mills recalls dances and parades and beach parties. She remembers when the town boasted three movie theaters instead of the Palace, the sole survivor.
When the ferry line moved its Eastern Shore stop south to Kiptopeke, it stole Cape Charles' prosperity. Stores - first A&N, then McCrory's - lost money and closed. Construction of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel made matters worse. The bridge-tunnel routed traffic past Cape Charles on Route 13 rather than through it.
But Mills is hearing none of this.
``I bristle whenever I hear people say Cape Charles is down. It's not down. It's not down. It's never been down and out,'' she says.
``I just love it here.''
Others do, too.
Foster, the developer, shares the same visions that many of the local people do. He doesn't want to impose his ideas on the community, he says. He wants community participation in what his development should be.
``Dickie Foster isn't going to be anybody's savior,'' he said. ``This ain't a one-man show. It's their town. I want to be a catalyst to start things happening.''
He's already talking about meeting representatives of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel; the Eastern Shore Railroad, which has a cargo depot in town; and The Nature Conservancy, one of the biggest property owners on the Eastern Shore. He plans to meet Chamber of Commerce members, some residents and town officials Monday.
They can't wait to meet him.
Bruce and Carol Evans, two ``come-heres'' - the nickname given to non-natives - from Chesapeake are putting out the welcome mat for Foster. They opened the Cape Charles House Bed and Breakfast two years ago.
``He can only bring life into this beautiful, historical community,'' said Bruce Evans, who also heads the industrial development authority overseeing the Sustainable Technologies Industrial Park. ``We have felt there was a vitality here all along.''
But they hope to avoid the mushrooming growth that they saw in Great Bridge and Chesapeake.
Kim Starr Wendell, who owns Chesapeake Properties, agrees.
``We don't want to become a bedroom community of Virginia Beach,'' she said.
A ``come-here'' who settled on the Eastern Shore about 13 years ago, Wendell fought the plan to put a prison on the Eastern Shore, but she welcomes Baymark.
``I feel a lot of the downtown will come naturally,'' she said, but she warned, ``It's Small Town, USA. In order to develop this area, they've got to understand who we are.''
Others urge inclusion.
``They need more homes for everyone,'' said the Rev. Martha Jackson, who preaches at the First Baptist Church on Route 13 in Capeville.
Jackson worries that some residents might not be able to afford the houses that Baymark builds. Some of the homes around town are rundown and in need of repair. Jackson also sounded the jobs theme.
Said Chester, the laborer: ``Help create jobs. The development itself will come. If you create jobs, people are going to build houses and all the rest.''
Voices and opinions throughout Cape Charles were about what ``might'' happen. Although they had many comments, people repeated a common theme: We need help.
One woman declined to speculate about Baymark's impact, saying she'd heard it all before. She hoped it would be good, she said. She was just waiting to see.
Brown & Root had promised a lot over the past two decades.
Foster understood.
``The only way you can get people to get as enthusiastic as I am is - you've got to have hope,'' he said. ``If you've got hope, enthusiasm will come.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
MIKE HEFFNER
The Virginian-Pilot
Lifelong resident Elizabeth Mills doesn't see Cape Charles as down.
But she hopes developer Richard Foster will revive its glory days.
KEYWORDS: EASTERN SHORE DEVELOPMENT by CNB