DATE: Saturday, March 15, 1997              TAG: 9703150309

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LINDA McNATT, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: SUFFOLK                           LENGTH:   85 lines

DEVELOPER SEEKS CITY'S HELP TO RUN SEWER LINE SUFFOLK SUPPORT MAY SPUR SMALL BUSINESSES.

A Nashville developer is ready to sink $3 million into northern Suffolk, an area he calls the prettiest in Hampton Roads.

But first, R. Larry Turner, of Turner and Associates Realty Inc., must sink $200,000 into a sewage pumping station to move sludge from the Food Lion Shopping Center to a regional sewerage line along U.S. Route 17.

Turner is looking for the city to foot part of the bill.

The pumping station, he said, would allow him to add a video store, a variety store, maybe even a pizza delivery outlet at the shopping center he is buying.

But the shopping center deal hinges on the city's answer.

If the answer's no, he said, ``It just won't happen.''

If it's yes, the decision would also allow other, smaller businesses along 17 - many which have been stymied for years because of sewerage problems - to operate a lot less expensively and possibly expand.

While existing businesses along the corridor, which winds from Suffolk through Isle of Wight County and to the Peninsula, watch subdivisions multiply, many of them are beginning to talk expansion. And new businesses, like Turner's, are eyeing the Bennett's Creek area as a hot development spot, especially since a Hampton Roads Sanitation District line has made its way along Route 17.

But the sewerage line, Suffolk officials say, isn't something they counted on. The city set its priorities long before HRSD showed up on Route 17, making its way to the Smithfield Packing plants in Isle of Wight.

Suffolk's director of utilities, Albert Moor, said the city is aware of the problems businesses have on Route 17.

``We have 60 unserved areas working on our capital plan,'' Moor said. ``We're going to try to coordinate our capital budget to meet all of the needs in Suffolk, but funding limits our abilities.''

The city plans to spend $4.2 million in the next two years developing sewerage in mostly residential areas - including Milteer Acres (just off Route 17), Holland Heights, Cedar Lake Shores, Lake Forest, Nansemond Shores and Palmyra.

All along the Route 17 corridor, the story is the same.

The sewage collection truck beats a path along Route 17 almost daily, going to one business or another, said John Dodson, owner of Bennett's Creek Citgo and Bennett's Creek Texaco, two convenience/gasoline stations.

During rainy weather, Dodson closes his restrooms. Septic tanks are pumped almost weekly. The car wash he's longed to build languishes.

The money that Turner is looking to invest in the pumping station isn't much more than what George and Steve Ikonomou have spent trying to keep things flowing at their steak house at the corner of Route 17 and Shoulder's Hill Road.

The brothers, Greek immigrants who arrived in 1970, opened the restaurant in 1975. First, Steve Ikonomou said, they had to add another septic tank.

Then, they had to go to a neighboring property owner to add drain fields. When it rained, he said, the drain fields looked like a lake.

As business increased, the Ikonomous invested $100,000 to run a 3-inch sewerage line down Shoulder's Hill to another regional sewerage line at Pughsville Road.

They must pay maintenance and upkeep on the private line, and, just last week, it cost $6,000 to repair two sludge pumps.

``We're spending a lot of money,'' Steve Ikonomou said. ``This restaurant pays about $5,000 a month to the city of Suffolk just in food taxes. Why am I to pay taxes when the city won't do a little something to help us?''

Next door to the restaurant, at Mike's Trainland, Michael S. Twiford has closed his bathrooms after hoards of holiday shoppers converged on the popular toy store and antique train museum.

Down the street, Judson H. ``Juddy'' Rodman, who operates a catering business in an old milking barn, has dreamed of expanding his business, maybe even adding a banquet room.

Dodson said there's a fast food restaurant that would like to be in the area by this summer. Another restaurant, closed after a fire several years ago, would like to reopen. Others are looking at the area too.

``I haven't blamed the city until recently because it hasn't been the city's fault,'' Dodson said. ``But now they have the resources (with the new line), and the time to do something is now.''

Dodson, who is acting as spokesperson for the Route 17 businesses, plans to address City Council next week.

Meanwhile Rodman is waiting.

``I can't even think about (expanding) until somebody does something with the sewage system out here,'' he said. ``Right now, every time somebody flushes a commode, that's seven gallons of water with nowhere to go but in the ground. If it's raining, I'm dead in the water, sitting here in no-man's land.''

And the sewage collection truck will keep rolling.

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