DATE: Monday, March 24, 1997                TAG: 9703240057

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:  109 lines

BEACH PLANS COMMUNITY PARK CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS LOOK AT A BROAD MISSION FOR 1,200 ACRES AT LAKE RIDGE

The lacrosse fields never had much of a chance, and the waterskiing lake was pretty much pie in the sky, but other projects are taking shape on open land just north of the Municipal Center.

The 1,200 acres the city bought more than two years ago are already home to the GTE Virginia Beach Amphitheater and will include a tournament quality golf course. Tuesday, the council will lay out proposals for the rest of the acreage, deciding whether to proceed with a giant soccer stadium and a juvenile detention center, and asking for public input on a recently completed land use plan.

The property, known as Lake Ridge, is this city's answer to New York's Central Park. More than one-third larger than that famous recreation spot, Lake Ridge has the potential to become the psychic core of a community whose most important public space to date is lined with resort hotels and packed with tourists.

But the grand vision of a park that is ``more than the sum of its parts'' is being slowed by a process that so far has put more value on special projects than overall planning, critics and supporters agree.

Some say the broad mission can only be refined now that the basic uses for the property have been laid out. Others worry Virginia Beach has already missed its chance to do something truly great alongside Princess Anne Road.

``This is not to say that this plan can't be good,'' councilwoman Barbara M. Henley said Friday. ``But I just don't feel that it's the very best that we could have done with this opportunity that we had that will never come again.''

For most of the last two years, specific projects have beendriving the plans for Lake Ridge.

First, the city justified buying the land - for a fire sale price of $9.5 million - to house the amphitheater. Work on the outdoor stage had to begin almost the minute the ink was dry on the land sale so opening night could be held last spring.

There were three schools planned: an elementary, middle and high school.

Then came a complex of soccer fields, partially funded by the city's youth soccer leagues. The fields are under construction at the back of Princess Anne Park, which was added to the Lake Ridge land.

In December, the council added another 112 acres, buying land just west of the Municipal Center that could house the middle school, the 10-acre detention center and an office park.

Finally, there are plans for a top-flight 200-acre golf course - which the council recently approved - and for a 150-acre multi-purpose stadium that could eventually be expanded to house a Major League Soccer team.

If the council approves the soccer stadium Tuesday, it will have already committed nearly half the available land.

The rest would be dedicated to a second golf course, business development and the relocated and expanded Princess Anne Park, according to current plans.

Fallen off the Lake Ridge map are suggestions from residents and local business owners to transform one of the amphitheater's drainage ponds into a waterskiing lake, to build 15 lacrosse fields, to dedicate 200 acres to an equestrian center, and to sell 25 acres for a shorter, easier golf course.

The city also hoped to lure a luxury hotel to the site, but was unable to negotiate a deal.

Planning Director Robert J. Scott said he thinks it's time now to begin looking at Lake Ridge as a whole.

``We needed to take this first step and decide roughly speaking what's going to go where,'' he said. Now, the city should hire a nationally known landscape design firm or group to add coherence to the plan, designing signs, roadways, lighting, landscaping and trails, he said.

``We've got an amphitheater piece, a golf piece, a stadium piece, a school piece, a juvenile detention piece,'' he said. ``We were handed a lot of givens in this project. Our goal is to make it all come together in a way such that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.''

All those pieces obviously come at a price. So far, totals top $150 million.

The city has already spent $12 million buying the land and about $21 million building the amphitheater and the roads and drainage ponds that serve it.

The soccer stadium would cost a minimum of $9 million and as much as $60 million or more, if it is expanded.

The schools will probably cost upwards of $70 million.

The first golf course will require a $3.5 million commitment from the city.

Relocating and enlarging Princess Anne Park would cost about $8 million.

The juvenile detention center would cost $9 million.

Extending Dam Neck Road to serve Lake Ridge is projected to cost $19.2 million. Building a new road that would loop around the Municipal Center to provide better access to Lake Ridge would cost $2.5 million, according to city plans.

Although the total sounds huge, City Manager James K. Spore said he thinks it is far less than the city would have had to spend to support private development of Lake Ridge.

Some of the city's biggest names in development amassed the Lake Ridge land between 1984 and 1987 and planned to turn it into a mini-city, complete with subdivisions, a hospital, a shopping mall, an office park, hotels and a golf course. In 1992, just two years before the council bought the land, it was valued on the tax rolls at $44.5 million.

Providing schools, roads and other infrastructure for a development of that magnitude would have cost far more than the city is spending to get a great public amenity at Lake Ridge, Spore said.

``If you contrast that with what it was going to be under the high density development of Lake Ridge, I think that's an example of a community truly making a difference in its future,'' he said.

The public hearing on the proposed master plan is set for early in Tuesday's council meeting, which begins at 6 p.m. The council will hear comments on the proposed multi-purpose or soccer stadium later in the meeting and then is expected to vote on the project. A vote on the detention center is also scheduled. ILLUSTRATION: Color Graphic by John Earle

Lake Ridge Proposal For complete copy, see microfilm KEYWORDS: LAKE RIDGE COMMUNITY PARK PROPOSED

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