Chesapeake Pirate

I have not heard any specifics but Randy Wright mentioned it when he spoke to the Freemason Street Area Association on September 19. He was very excited about the significance of October 1 as I recall.

It would be great for Norfolk to have a great city park planned as part of the redevelopment of the St. Paul's quadrant, and including the skating rink there makes a lot of sense. The planning for this area and the anticpated leapfrog of downtown north of Brambleton will make the next 10 years very interesting.

As someone who grew up during the 60's and 70's in close proximity to Shea Stadium and the Nassau Coliseum and was able to see a modest number of pro baseball, pro hockey, pro basketball and pro baseball games until I move to the Hampton Roads area, I can comfortably say that the price escalation of the tickets makes me glad that I have turned my focus to college athletics and to the Norfolk Tides and Norfolk Admirals. I just returned from a vacation in California and had a chance to attend a game at McAfee Coliseum in Oakland. We got mid priced tickets which were $32. Parking was $15. Every concession item was $2 more than you would pay here. No big deal for a vacation experience, but if you would like to go to 10-12 games a year as I now do with the Tides, that would take a much bigger financial commitment. Several years ago we were in Anaheim and chose to pay $80 a ticket for two in the very first row by the Angels dugout that somehow were available two hours before the game. Again, not something many would do regularly. I think we have what we have for a reason, and I think we would be well served to support the Tides and the Admirals and ODU and Norfolk State and Virginia Wesleyan and Hampton and Christopher Newport (sorry if I left anyone out) and be glad for those opportunities.

Subject: Invitation from Councilman Randy Wright July 2, '07 Councilman Randy Wright has asked that we extend this invitation to DNC Members. Presented in-part by Hampton Roads Transit (HRT) THINKING BEYOND THE STATION: Creating Great Places Around Transit July 15, 2007 11:30am - 4:30pm Norfolk Waterside Marriott 11:30am - 12:30pm Registration, Lunch, Networking 12:30 - 1:30pm Role of Transit in Creating Communities Featured Speakers Include: The Honorable Joe S. Frank ~ Mayor of Newport News The Honorable Barbara W. Henley ~ Virginia Beach City Councilwoman The Honorable Randy Wright ~ Norfolk City Councilman Moderator Dana Dickens ~ Hampton Roads Partnership 1:30 - 4:30 Additional Workshops (For more information call 435-5961) Copyright

I think Town Center is a better bet. Va. Beach doesn't want locals driving to the beach now. Can't imagine they would want anyone being able to get to their oceanfront so easily and inexpensively.

I think the answer is the well earned lack of faith and trust in VDOT to effectively manage hard earned tax dollars. Couple that with tight pocketbooks in general and it's easy to understand skepticism over even higher taxes and fees. We don't all agree on government spending priorities, so this leads to questions from all directions.

Prepare to ride the Tide! The name has been picked

Maybe that could be an idea to incorporate into the planning process for the St. Paul's quadrant.

It's pretty funny that you would choose to cite an expert impartial source to condemn dining in HR, and not even have a clue that they don't even know where HR's is. Following are the only cities they rate restaurants in in Virginia: Alexandria (48) Flint Hill (1) Purcellville (1) Annandale (2) Great Falls (3) Reston (12) Arlington (79) Herndon (11) Rosslyn (4) Ashburn (3) Lansdowne (3) South Riding (1) Boyce (1) Leesburg (3) Springfield (3) Broadlands (1) Manassas (4) Sterling (1) Centreville (1) McLean (31) The Plains (1) Chantilly (2) Merrifield (1) Upperville (1) Culpeper (1) Middleburg (1) Vienna (9) Fairfax (18) Oakton (1) Washington (1) Falls Church (24) Paris (1) Woodbridge (2)

I have yet to eat at The Boot, but plan to soon. As far as your disastisfaction with the TW region and how conservative it is, I am sorry you are so disappointed. This area is a fine area with many wonderful people and many wonderful places to go and things to do. Sure it suffers from identity issues and transportation and geographical issues, and that has an impact on its vitality. I have lived here for 30 years and seen a lot of great things happen. This is the headquarters of the Atlantic Fleet, not Silicon Valley. People repair ships here and build pickup trucks here. Well, they used to build pickup trucks here. This is not the state capital, and the area has it's share of poverty caused in large part by well meaning liberal great society programs. Sorry your appetite has to endure the local cuisine. I just loved the absolutely authentic philly cheesesteak I had last week at the grill on Grace Street downtown.

Hasn't Food Lion recently announced a big plan to upgrade certain stores in the Hampton Roads area into a more upscale brand called Bloom?

Harborfest 2007, with all of the tall ships and extra events tied into the theme of the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, and with an incredible fireworks demonstration, was the best one by far in many, many years.

Norfolk and HRT continue to fail in fully utilizing the talent and expertise available here at UrbanPlanet.org. What are those government officials thinking?

That's a good point but not the "major" issue. While I would be hopeful and showed my hope by reserving two season tickets on that last go round, I would and do doubt the ability of our area to gather double or triple that amount of crowd for 81 times each year, at prices about double what everyone paid last Friday.

All wars involving the US. If you haven't been there and taken a half hour or so to read them you are missing out on a very meaningful and thought provoking expereince.

I think ODU can thank George Mason's run last year for their bid. It would have been very hard for the committee to explain limiting the CAA to it's historically normal one bid after what George Mason did last year. There is good basketball being played in the CAA, and now ODU get's their chance to prove it. Doesn't make folks at places like Syracuse and Florida State feel better, but I think it helps the overall interest in the tournament when you have a few more non-BCS schools in the mix.

That is an excellent idea. The question then would be what to do with that land while we are waiting for what may come in 5 or 10 or 15 years. Would we also keep Scope? While it would be great to have an 18-20,000 seat arena downtown which would complement the overall growth of the city, it just seems impossible to prioritize that above the other pressing needs which exist today. We have the Admirals quartered nicely in Scope right now, and need to take care of the other things like light rail and the library and the new courts building first.

???? I can see PierPoint out my window and I am seeing predominatly red brick and a dark grey roof. It blends nicely with the complementary colors of Freemason Condominium....both the dark brick building and the lighter colored pier units to the north and with the USS Wisconsin to the south.

The Landings at Bolling Square is "Phase Two" of that combination condo and townhouse project on Bolling across from the new St. Patrick's Catholic School, between Colley and Hampton. Demolition of the old apartments has recently been completed. The Landings at Bolling Square

There is very limited open space in downtown Norfolk, and I think the city believes that Town Point Park in all it's wonder and glory covers all park needs for downtown. This is probably not the correct thread for this discussion, but our good friend vdogg usually wil come along and get us straight . There is an opportunity with the redevelopment planning beginning for the St. Paul's Quadrant to also incorporate some park area in that section of downtown, but I still think there is a tremendous need for more in downtown proper, if you will

Perhaps there are some lessons to be learned from the experience with the skating rink, which seemed to again be amazingly successful even with unseasonably warm weather. What are the chances of the city acquiring this land and making into a public park? Keep the skating rink for a longer period of time....Thanksgiving to March. Assemble it over top of a water spray park for use the rest of the year. Is there room for a softball field? A volleyball court? A basketball court? A track for joggers? Some playground equipment? What about an old fashioned carousel? If we can't get a third anchor, why not create something that would add to the quality of life for downtown workers, residents, and visitors? It obviously wouldn't be Central Park, but it could become a real asset to downtown.

A satellite campus of ODU in Va. Beach is an interesting idea, but I wonder if that will take away too many students from the existing infrastructure that has been built. There is a lot of investment in the ODU campus by the taxpayers, and building anything more than basic classrooms in Virginia Beach would seem to be needless duplication. Of course, I am one who thinks it is questionable to have two state universities in the one city of Norfolk, but today is not the day for that discussion.

Lovely comment today from the Chairman of the School board in the City of Virginia Beach, Daniel Edwards: "I think it's very unfortunate that a city of 400,000 people, we have drive....into Norfolk to attend a four year school. It's not very fair to a city our size." Virginia Beach University?

The January 2007 Planning Update Newsletter has just come out and is linked on this site. I don't see mention of any specific times/dates for teh next meetings or any other opportunities for input, so we shall have to wait for that. http://www.norfolk.gov/Planning/SaintPaulsQuadrant.asp