THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 26, 1997 TAG: 9701260116
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 77 lines
Everyone started off with the same idea: We don't want another Route 44.
What to do instead was less clear, though, and the subject of a two-day design session for the proposed Southeastern Parkway and Greenbelt.
A group of city employees and consultants spent most of Thursday and Friday shuttered in an airless conference room, sharing and refining their individual visions for the proposed $380 million project.
Although the process is far from over, what emerged was an effort to build a different kind of highway than the one that was hacked through the middle of Virginia Beach nearly 30 years ago and has been widened repeatedly since.
``You can build two ribbons of asphalt, or you can build something nice,'' said George N. Tzavaras, public works project engineer for the parkway.
``The last thing in the world we want is another 44,'' Planning Department Director Robert J. Scott added. ``I'm delighted to see people give some real thought to how this could be a positive element in this community.''
The proposed 21-mile parkway would link Route 44 at the Oceana Naval Air Station with Interstate 464 in Chesapeake, cutting through heavily developed areas, sensitive wetlands and vast farmland in between. Design and construction are expected to take about a decade.
The Virginia Beach City Council has doggedly pursued the project despite criticism from federal environmental agencies and opposition - now apparently softening - from neighboring Chesapeake. The road, formerly called the Southeastern Expressway, would bring economic development to the state's most populous city by providing another way in and out, supporters on the council say.
But the council made clear when it recommitted itself to the roadway in December 1995 that it didn't want to pay the usual price a highway brings: mass destruction of communities and the environment.
The concept, which the consultants were hired to enforce, was symbolized by the name change from an ``expressway'' into a ``parkway and greenbelt.'' Mayor Meyera E. Oberndorf said her role model was the Colonial Parkway, which links Colonial Williamsburg with Yorktown and Jamestown.
Last week, a team of landscape architects, highway engineers and city leaders tried to translate that image into a plan that makes sense for Virginia Beach.
Working in two groups, the team came up with two schemes for the road: a bucolic parkway lined with trees and crossed by brick or stone bridges; and a ``community gateway'' that would encourage motorists to experience Virginia Beach as they drove through it.
Among the decisions the two plans highlighted was whether the parkway should go over or under local roads, whether the lanes should run next to each other the whole way or be separated by a wide median, and how best to bridge the sensitive wetlands near West Neck Creek, North Landing River and Stumpy Lake.
Both concepts ended at the Chesapeake-Virginia Beach line. Although Chesapeake Mayor William E. Ward said his council will reconsider its opposition to the project next month, Chesapeake did not participate in paying the design consultants or in the design workshop. Any ideas developed for the Virginia Beach section of the highway would likely be extended to Chesapeake, officials said.
There was also no public participation last week. That's yet to come, said Cales Givens, vice president of EDAW Inc., the design firm hired to help build a better highway.
In the fall, the city, the state and EDAW will hold public workshops to get feedback on what's been done so far. Detailed decisions, such as what the road will look like as it passes by Dam Neck Road, will be made with public input, Givens said.
In the meantime, the design group will meet several times to work out big issues, such as how much land is needed and how wide the medians should be.
The state will also continue to work on an environmental review of the project, expected to be completed in May, and will apply for permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Highway Administration.
City Manager James K. Spore said he was struck during the two days by how much the parkway design differed from typical projects where trees are afterthoughts and engineers, not landscape architects, are in charge.
``It's a whole different flavor, a different approach, which is really exciting,'' Spore said. ``I just hope we can deliver an end product that reflects the sensitivity of that approach.''