DATE: Sunday, September 28, 1997            TAG: 9709280086

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   96 lines

BOOSTING ECONOMY IS NAME OF GAME NORFOLK BUSINESS LEADERS, OFFICIALS STUDY COSTS OF GROWTH

The more Jeffrey Roike learns about this old port city, the better he says he likes it.

And after attending a three-hour workshop Saturday that brought together about 100 of Norfolk's civic and business leaders, Roike said he's even more bullish about its future.

City officials sponsored the event, called ``Norfolk-opoly,'' to discuss the tough choices involved in maintaining Norfolk's status as the cultural and economic hub of the region.

Roike, as the new general manager of The Hotel Norfolk, was drawn here this spring by the prospect of economic growth spun by construction of the $300-million MacArthur Center mall downtown.

The company that bought the hotel last March, Richmond-based Patrick Investments Corp., is pumping about $10 million into building renovations. The corporation recently agreed to become a Clarion Hotel franchise.

``With this magnitude of investment, we want to be very attentive to the city and where it's headed and what ideas we might contribute,'' Roike said of his decision to invest a Saturday morning in the workshop. ``We're very excited about the city, and we think the city's headed in the right direction.''

By 1999, the new Clarion should generate more than $700,000 annually in tax revenue for the city, he said.

And those are the kinds of facts city officials wanted to get across at Saturday's workshop, which was based on the board game Monopoly.

To get the morning rolling, they played a round of ``Norfolk-opoly,'' using a huge game board hanging on the stage curtains in the auditorium at Lafayette-Winona Middle School. Listed on spaces around the board were some of the city's key revenue generators and money drains. A city staffer rolled two huge cardboard dice down the aisle.

One roll landed on Dominion Tower, the loftiest spot in Norfolk and annual generator of more than $500,000 in tax revenues. Another roll landed on the ``community chest'' and bad news: a city sewer line, some of which date to the early 1900s, broke, costing the city almost as much to repair as the revenue from Dominion Tower.

Later, in small work sessions, participants grappled with some of the hard issues, such as how to revive or sustain the city's neighborhood commercial districts, including 35th Street, Five Points, Wards Corner and East Little Creek.

A consensus emerged that the city often doesn't react quickly enough to prevent the deterioration that has blighted some of these commercial districts.

``Since Norfolk is landlocked, the land is too valuable, you can't let it sit idle, whether it's blighted or not,'' said Fred Amos, president of the Norfolk Industrial Park Association. ``The city needs to get involved earlier than in the past.''

The decline of commercial districts often is linked with blight in surrounding neighborhoods, meaning that the city needs to be more aggressive in addressing broader neighborhood development, some said.

``The business fortunes or misfortunes reflect the people living in the neighborhood,'' said resident Blount Hunter.

Lax code enforcement and absentee landlords were identified as problems.

``When we have a shopping center that's run down, it does hurt our image. But you have to ask, `Is it the landlord or the businesses?' '' said Jamie Plaine, operations manager for Albano Cleaners.

Participants also debated the pros and cons of choosing between upscale residences or high-paying industry when deciding how to develop the limited land that Norfolk has available.

About 95 percent of the city is already fully developed, and about 47 percent is tax-exempt, most of it owned by government - including the Navy, the state ports and the city.

``It really does mean that we have to constantly be revitalizing and reconstructing what we have,'' said Roslyn Brown, president of the Tidewater Performing Arts. ``You just can't let those areas be dormant.''

The workshop also pointed out tensions. In one fictitious ``case study,'' participants had to decide whether to develop a 15-acre tract with a high-tech industry bringing 150 jobs and $35,000-average salaries or respect the wishes of residents and two civic organizations to leave it as a park.

Two groups debating the problem opted for compromise: They favored locating the industry there but said that land should be set aside for green space and that Norfolk residents should be given priority for jobs.

The participants said they believe the city is getting better at listening to the community. Now that council members are elected in ward elections, rather than citywide ones - a change that occurred in 1992 - their political future may depend on it.

``City officials more than ever now are in tune to what their constituents feel,'' said George Bryan, owner of the Norfolk Financial Corp. downtown. ``They cannot mandate anything without the support of their communities.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

THE MEETING

City officials sponsored the event, called ``Norfolk-opoly,'' to

discuss the choices involved in maintaining the economy.

PROBLEMS ADDRESSED

The decline of commercial districts

Lax code enforcement by city

Absentee landlords KEYWORDS: ECONOMY NORFOLK

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