virginia pe

And it was. Before the mall was built, the land where MacArthur Mall sits was a 17-acre parking lot. That's how it was referred to in the paper and in City Hall - "the 17 acres". And it was like that for years and years, maybe decades. The city tried hard to find a developer to develop that parking lot without success, until Taubman came along with the mall proposal. Despite its shortcomings today, back then it was the only option for the city, and it did turn the city around.

Craney Island is too important to the Port of Virginia to ever develop it for anything else. Most of the material dredged from the Hampton Roads harbor goes to Craney Island until it is dried out and can be safely trucked away. Dredging is nearly a continuing operation to maintain the depth required for commercial shipping. Getting the regulatory permits to dispose of all that material offshore or anywhere else would eat up a lot of time and cost a ton of money. https://www.nao.usace.army.mil/About/Projects/Craney-Island/ The Hampton Roads Executive Airport is adjacent to the Great Dismal Swamp. If an airplane taking off to toward the south had mechanical problems, it would have to make an emergency landing in the swamp. It would take forever to get rescue crews to the crash site.

I agree that nor'easters are fairly common, but not nor'easters that would flood Waterside Drive, let alone Main Street, which is even higher. I cannot recall Waterside Drive being closed due to flooding.

They have been asking the questions. Here are some of the questions: What will the economic impact be on current downtown restaurants, hotels and entertainment establishments? People visiting the casino are not likely to leave the casino to visit other downtown restaurants or hotels. The casino will pay no taxes on meals/beverages, spa services, lodging or entertainment, only on the net gaming receipts. Does this give the casino an unfair advantage over other restaurants and hotels? The city is funding an economic impact study to consider the additional taxes from a new downtown arena to replace Scope. What negative impact will the casino have on a future arena? Could it kill the chance of a new arena? The city hopes to attract $1 Billion in investment in the St. Paul’s Quadrant? How will the casino impact the development of St. Paul’s Quadrant? What does Norfolk State think about having a casino less than a mile from its campus? Many studies have shown that property values of houses in proximity to casinos decline as a result of a casino opening. Norfolk is investing $112 million in the Ohio Creek Basin to create the “coastal community of the future”. How will the casino affect Chesterfield Heights? Studies show that there is an increase in crime when casinos enter a neighborhood. It is likely that there will be a significant cost to police, fire and emergency services. What is this cost? Why has a risk assessment not been completed to understand the increased costs of public safety as a result of this casino? Has Norfolk’s public safety leadership weighed in on the effects of a casino on potential increase in public safety costs? No, these are not my questions. This is a recap of some of the questions Councilwoman Andria McClellan posted on Facebook back in September. Her FB post was copied onto this site on September 22 .

What about in three years, if the plans to build the casino fall through? What about in 20 years, if the casino does not make the huge money everyone is assuming it will produce, and the Pamunkey tribe decides to close the casino?

I don't think we have heard the end from the Nansemond tribe. The Nansemond are prohibited by law from operating a casino, but I do not see them standing idly by while the Pamunkey tribe rakes in all this money. I can see the Nansemonds filing a lawsuit claiming the "tribal land" where the casino is to be built is more Nanesmond than Pamunkey, with the ultimate goal of forcing the Pamunkey tribe to share some of the casino profits with them.

In the Hampton Roads market, driven precast piles are generally more economical than augercast piles, partly because we have local precasters to manufacture the piles - Bayshore Precast Concrete, with plants in Cape Charles (now closed) and Chesapeake. In other markets, like South Florida, many buildings are supported on augercast piles. The developers are probably paying a premium for augercast piles to reduce the noise and vibration of driven piles, but they are not likely to be way more expensive. River Tower is definitely not the first building in Norfolk to use augercast piles.

To be able to offer international flights, they need ICE to agree to man a customs office for incoming flights. They also need a separate corridor to keep arriving passengers separated from the rest of the airport until they clear passport control and customs. The airlines need to know that the market it there, and will be there reliably for the long haul. It is not economically feasible to fly smaller jets across the Atlantic. They usually fly 767s or 777s. Can you fill that plane up once a week? Will Norfolk's runway support a plane that big? I suspect the international flights the mayor is proposing are to the Caribbean, not Europe.

As I read the article, when the Pamunkey tribe applied for federal recognition, they listed the areas where the tribe lived, farmed, and hunted. Apparently, according to the Nansemond tribe's letter, they did not list any areas in the 7 cities. It doesn't help that the previous chief of the Pamunkey tribe called the claim that Norfolk is ancestral Pamunkey land "a long stretch."

I am curious about this statement. If they just recently brought in a design firm, who provided all those fancy renderings we saw three years ago?

The new development in OV is nice, but I still hate to see those beautiful oak trees destroyed.

It may have been mentioned previously on this thread, but all of the posts prior to September, 2016 were accidentally deleted.

I helped to design those apartments back in the late 80s. It was EVMS student housing back then. I assume it still is.

As radio commentator Paul Harvey used to say to introduce a news story, "Just what, not why." Here is an article from the Charlotte Observer about development there. www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article187087708.html

According to this article, Newton's Creek (adjacent to Harbor Park) did not get any funding from the National Disaster Resilience Competition, but Ohio Creek, just east of Newton's Creek, received most of the $120 million awarded to Virginia to combat flooding due to sea-level rise. https://pilotonline.com/news/local/environment/hampton-roads-to-get-more-than-m-to-combat-future/article_08cbbfee-d215-515f-83ae-67ff9198b107.html

I was part of the design team that renovated the Woolworth's when TCC started its downtown campus. When I first went there, the lunch counter and stools were till in place near the corner at Freemason and Monticello. Before it was a Woolworth's, it was W.T. Grant Company. Before that, it was a YMCA. When I went into the basement, you could still see the swimming pool. It had white ceramic tile walls with numbers to indicate the pool depth.

I don't think Norfolk can make light rail work without Virginia Beach. They can put all the tracks they want in Norfolk, but the bulk of the riders are in Virginia Beach. And people from Green Run or Great Neck or Sandbridge are not going to drive to Newtown Road to park their cars,and wait for the next train to take them to downtown or the navy base. If they have driven that far, they will stay in their cars another five or ten minutes to get to their destination.

Yes, it is an amazing stretch of river with a great view. Perhaps city council believes that such a great view should be available to all of the city, not just the few elite that could afford to live in a tower on the waterfront.

According to Paragraph IV on Page 1, Waterside Live! has become the Waterside District. It has changed to "a marketplace and brew house concept rather than a live entertainment concept". How is a market place and brew house concept any different from what it was five years ago, when all this started?

No. Waterside was opened in June, 1983. By that time, the dangers of asbestos were well known, and the use of asbestos for building construction was greatly limited. So asbestos was probably never used in the construction of Waterside. On any demolition project, the owner is required to have a hazardous material survey completed by a testing laboratory before demolition begins. If any asbestos is found, they are required to have an asbestos abatement contractor remove the asbestos under strictly controlled conditions and dispose of the asbestos in a legal manner, or they are required to encapsulate the asbestos so no fibers will be dislodged and released. Assuming the Norfolk Building Safety Bureau is doing their job, if asbestos was used to construct Waterside in the early 1980s, it is gone by now, or else it is in a location where it will not be disturbed during the renovation.

Why would Greyhound want to move? Yes, their building is old, dirty, and in need of renovation. But it's cheap. A new terminal would cost big bucks. Are any potential passengers thinking "I'd take the bus, but their Norfolk terminal is so dingy. No, I think I'll fly instead."? Or, "I was going to fly or take the train, but now that Greyhound has a brand spanking new terminal, I guess I'll take the bus instead."? Or even, "Now that I can get Greyhound right at the bus transfer station, I'll go with Greyhound." I don't see any incentive for Greyhound to leave their Shangri La on Brambleton.

No, that is an old article. The date on the article is September 9, 2014.

I agree that the two cities need to cooperate, and they should do their squabbline in private. But it works both ways. Norfolk should have reached out to Virginia Beach to bring them on board before announcing this project. Virginia Beach is right to look at this project closely. A large portion of their population has to traverse Northampton Boulevard to reach the interstate. The Northhampton Interchange is already one of the busiest sections of interstate highway in the state, and it can only get worse with this shopping mall. Virginia Beach owes it to their constiuents to be proactive on this; they cannot just sit back and let Norfolk do whatever they want in this important corridor, just for the sake of "regional cooperation".