THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 1, 1997 TAG: 9612310001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A16 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 141 lines
As the 21st century nears, Norfolk has not merely survived the centrifugal forces that robbed many old U.S. cities of vitality; it also has generated momentum for economic development that will assure the city's continued solvency.
Economic Development. During the first month of 1996, City Council and the Taubman Company broke ground for the $300 million MacArthur Center that will stand on long-vacant urban-renewal acreage downtown.
The superregional MacArthur Center, with its anchor department stores and scores of shops and restaurants, is on track for completion between the fall of 1998 and the spring of 1999. The center's merchants will target Hampton Roads' underserved upscale-shopping market.
Meanwhile, the Granby District Initiative - a partnership between city government and the business community - is working to foster a resurgence of commerce downtown as MacArthur Center rises.
The Colley Avenue-21st Street commercial district, which offers neighborhood shopping and dining experiences, acquired more restaurants, more shops, more service providers even as the city tore up 21st Street to make essential repairs and improvements.
New housing continues to be built in the city, much of it on land cleared for the purpose. City Council continued support of the East Ocean View renewal project while also voting to breathe health into the East Little Creek Road commercial corridor and to brighten Ward's Corner.
Unfortunately, the city bade farewell to the Naval Aviation Depot at Norfolk Naval Air Station and its highly paid employees. But Norfolk welcomed TWA's new East Coast reservation center, which is projected to employ 500 when fully staffed.
As the year ended, promoter George Shinn dangled before Southeastern Virginia the possibility of a National Hockey League team, the proposed Hampton Roads Rhinos, based in a 20,000-seat arena near MacArthur Center.
Education. In 1996, the Norfolk Campus of Tidewater Community College became a reality; existing commercial buildings were transformed into a library and classrooms, and a science and student-services building was constructed. TCC-Norfolk expects to enroll 1,000 to 2,500 students in January and many more thousands in future semesters.
Eastern Virginia Medical School established a geriatric-medicine institute, underwritten by a generous gift.
Norfolk State University opened the L. Douglas Wilder Performing Arts Center, adding to Norfolk's collection of stages and auditoriums that have made the city a performing-arts mecca.
Old Dominion University announced its intention to start soon on extensive development of acreage on the east side of Hampton Boulevard. A convocation center will be the centerpiece of a project that will include shops and stores.
Container-cargo traffic is accelerating at Hampton Roads' marine terminals, with the result that a multimillion-dollar pier expansion will soon be under way at Norfolk International Terminal. As port business picks up, need intensifies for a second midtown tunnel crossing between Norfolk and Portsmouth and a third Hampton Roads crossing, preferably anchored on the south side near NIT.
Arts and Culture. Last January, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber's ``Phantom of the Opera'' ended 54 performances at Chrysler Hall, where it grossed $6.4 million and contributed $750,000 to the municipal treasury.
``Myth, Magic and Mystery,'' a children's book-art exhibition put together by two Chrysler Museum curators, drew 40,000 visitors during the summer and was the subject of a network television-show segment. One of the curators was no longer on the museum payroll when the show opened; she was among seven museum employees - 10 percent of staff - dismissed in a painful, unexpected cost-cutting move.
The Chrysler, which possesses the finest collection of arts objects south of Washington, is a fine museum. But it is without an executive director and sufficient staff and money to mount exhibitions and programs that will draw throngs.
Attendance at Nauticus, the National Maritime Center, continued to disappoint. But the currently featured exhibit, ``Titanic: The Expedition,'' should boost numbers. Meanwhile, Nauticus is the setting for more and more public happenings; among these in 1996 were the announcement of the grass-roots Elizabeth River Project's waterway-cleansing plan; a Navy chili cookoff; presentation of MacArthur Center's final design; and a Bob Dole presidential-campaign rally.
The Virginia Zoological Society in November initiated a campaign to raise millions of dollars from the private sector. Together with funds from the city, the money will be used to construct an African-continent exhibit. Virginia Zoo counts 300,000 visitors annually with scant advertising. The African-continent exhibit, a component of the zoo master plan, might well double visits.
Capital improvements. Funds released by the Virginia Department of Transportation ignited an explosion of highway and street repair, with enhancements to Military Highway and the widening of I-264 being the most conspicuous.
Repairs are being made to a portion of 26th Street at Lafayette-Winona. Replacement of sewer and water lines and repaving of West Ghent streets were completed this year. Working with the neighborhood, the city resolved a standing-water problem in Tipperton Place and increased the area's attractiveness. Seemingly endless construction and repaving on Hampton Boulevard by the state was concluded; the result is a clean and spacious look and smooth traffic flow.
Two new high-school football stadiums were completed.
Community Improvement. Norfolk looks cleaner than ever, thanks in large measure to the Norfolk Sweeps Clean program. Working with civic leagues (there are 90), City Hall mounted its first comprehensive, year-round code-compliance effort. Teams of inspectors from several municipal departments moved through neighborhoods. Vacant lots were cleared, abandoned automobiles hauled off, litter picked up and and code violations cited.
Crime. Norfolk residents assembled twice during the year in response to City Hall's invitation to, first, define their vision for the city and, second, attend a workshop to help shape the nearly half-billion-dollar municipal budget for the 1997 fiscal year. Residents involved in the budget workshop identified public safety and education as their leading concerns.
The city's FY97 budget addresses the public-safety concern in its addition of 27 patrol officers and 16 civilian officers (to handle desk chores) to the police force. The citywide Police Assisted Community Enforcement program is thought to have helped bring down the city's crime rates by strengthening ties and cooperation between police and citizens.
Norfolk Public Schools is doing its part to combat crime, drugs and ignorance by maintaining tight security on schoolgrounds and in hallways and classrooms and instituting a systemwide reading initiative with the goal of seeing that every student reads on grade level. Youngsters who lag in reading may choose between being retained or attending summer school.
Norfolk's crime rates are still too nigh for comfort. But PACE, Norfolk Sweeps Clean, the schools' zero tolerance of drugs and weapons and emphasis on literacy - and sundry youth-recreation programs - could further tame crime.
Norfolk's citizens are right to demand a safer city. High urban crime rates contribute to the American distaste for city life.
Regionalism. City Council authorized a $1-per-capita-per-year investment in the Hampton Roads Economic Development Alliance's Forward Hampton Roads public/private partnership. But release of a water study suggesting that Norfolk has more water than previously believed stimulated anger in Virginia Beach. The Beach has invested more than a dozen years and millions of dollar in a pipeline to bring water from Lake Gaston - a project that North Carolina and Roanoke River Basin localities oppose. Beach leaders viewed the water study's release (in answer to a demand by The Virginian-Pilot) as an attempt by Norfolk to weaken the resort city's case.
Suspicion of Norfolk lingers. The Beach City Council's 6-5 vote for a federally funded study of the proposed Virginia Beach-Norfolk light-rail line was attended by complaints that the link would primarily benefit Norfolk.
That's nonsense, as the Norfolk Naval Base commander's plea for the light-rail study made clear; light rail could ease commuting strain on the Navy's uniformed and civilian personnel. Intercity tensions must ease in 1997. Cooperation among localities, not destructive rivalry, is the key to prosperity for all of Hampton Roads.
KEYWORDS: 1996 YEAR IN REVIEW NORFOLK