Sustainable Land Development Today - July/August 2008 - (Page 24) Owner/Developer East Beach Renaissance, LLC, Leyland Alliance, LLC, City of Norfolk, Redevelopment and Housing Authority throws them together without understand how they all affect each other.” Key Consultants/Financial Sources Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company Urban Design Associates CMSS Architects Woolpert, LLP Wachovia Bank and the on-street parking aisles have transitioned from asphalt to gravel. “The streets go from very formal to very casual. It’s one of those imperceptible things, but I really think it establishes a sense of where you are in the community,” Bell said. City support The effort to reverse the downward spiral has had a champion on the Norfolk City Council in Randy Wright, who led the charge for the City to invest $50 million to acquire property and revitalize the area. To maintain greater control over the project, the City opted not to go after federal funds, but to obtain financing from a local bank to fund the rehab project. “From the beginning, Councilman Wright has insisted that everything be done first class,” Bell said. He points to a threeyear battle early on to change a Virginia DOT plan for a bridge replacement that connects to a main roadway through East Beach. The State favored a standard, concrete span. Instead, Wright pushed for one that featured steel-arch supports, with topside brick pavers, treeway wells, and Colonial lantern heads. “That set the tone that clearly stated ‘This was not going to be business as usual in developing this place,’” Frye said. Such support became contagious. Not a single “no” vote from the City has impeded development of the East Beach project. The return on the City’s investment is significant in a number of areas. Before the development, East Ocean View cost the City of Norfolk an estimated $2 million to $2.5 million a year to provide police, fire, and social services. At full build out, it is expected to generate between $6 million and $6.5 million a year in positive tax revenue. “That’s an $8.5 to $9 million swing in property taxes, which justified the City’s $50 million investment on that basis alone. You take that deal to Wall Street and they’d jump on it,” Bell said. Further, the development has had a very positive impact on the rest of Ocean View, where property values had risen two to three times over the past six years. “As far as the surrounding real estate market, when we opened in 2004, all the really good deals on property within three miles of here were gone. Every- Distinctive architecture East Beach is being done completely without production builders. “For this particular neighborhood, we wanted to use builders who are constructing four-to-12 houses a year, that have great customer service, and who are willing to customize the houses to customers’ needs,” Bell said. Four architectural styles were chosen: (Victorian, Arts and Crafts, Colonial Revival, and Tidewater Shingle). “As long as they build a home that is true to one of those architectural styles, they can build any size or kind of house they want.” UDA was charged with creating the East Beach Pattern Book, a detailed document which is used by a full-time Town Architect, and a design review committee to assure the guidelines and exterior finishing standards are maintained, in both design and construction of the homes. The Pattern Book not only contains all of the details of each architectural style, but it also explains how they interrelate to each other. “What it does is allow the architect or the designer to use all the imagination that they possess to create a place that conforms with their client’s wishes, that is also historically accurate,” Frye said. “It adds up to a streetscape that you would not get when somebody takes a collection of architectural details and body who knew what we were doing had gone in and bought those parcels,” Bell said. Shared risk Some bad experiences in the past made the City cautious about how it sold the property. In some cases, the developer defaulted or otherwise failed to deliver. Meanwhile, a developer would be cautious about committing to a multimillion dollar redevelopment of a property with a well-established bad reputation. The City of Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority and East Beach Company, LLC arrived at a compromise that spreads the risk. 24 July/August 2008 Sustainable Land Development Today
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