NORFOLK, VA - City officials unveiled a sweeping, ambitious vision Tuesday for the redevelopment of an area known as the St. Paul's Quadrant just east of downtown. Preliminary plans call for a dense mixture of housing, retail, office and recreational uses in the 100-plus acres of mostly city-owned land. Included in the plan is rebuilding the more than 600 public housing units.
The heart of the area would be a new intersection that would be created by extending Church and Freemason streets. At that point, there would be a mix of uses and a large storm-water retention area with fountains. "We need to continue to maintain and build this community," city planning director Frank Duke said. A primary goal of the plan is to reconnect the area to downtown, Duke added. "We have segregated this community through the road network and the presence of Tidewater Gardens," Duke said. Tidewater Gardens is a 618-unit public housing development that about 1,400 people call home.
The area is nearly 1-1/2 times the size of the city's central business district and is bounded by St. Paul's Boulevard, Brambleton Avenue, Tidewater Drive and City Hall Avenue. The former Downtown Plaza, now a city parking lot, is part of the area. A key to restoring connections is offering safe pedestrian crossings at St. Paul's Boulevard, Duke said. The plan calls for about 2,000 economically mixed housing units comprising public housing, workforce housing and market-rate housing and including lofts, apartments and townhouses. About half would be priced at the market rate, while the rest would either be subsidized or priced at a rate that would be affordable to moderately paid members of the local workforce.
About 64 percent of the units would be rentals, while the remainder would be owner-occupied. "It's very important we are planning a family community" and not target just young professionals and empty-nesters, City Councilwoman Daun Hester said. Hester said the community is now family-oriented and centered in part around Tidewater Park Elementary School and the Hunton YMCA.
In addition to housing, the plan envisions 378,000 square feet of retail space and about 260,000 square feet of office space. A recreation area with fields, playgrounds and a community center could occupy the southeast corner near Interstate 264. Planners will be meeting with stakeholders in the area, including residents, churches and businesses, through the end of the year, and expect to have a final plan ready in early 2009. The preliminary plan calls for preserving and enhancing four historic churches in the area.
A concern in the community has been relocating low-income residents while the public housing is rebuilt. Duke said the city and consultants are working on a phased approach to the redevelopment plan to minimize disruption. The toughest period, Duke said, would be when construction starts and residents in about 150 units would need to relocate either to other public housing, Section 8-subsidized housing or senior housing. The remaining tenants would be able to move into new units as they are completed, he added.
City Manager Regina V.K. Williams estimated that some funding for the redevelopment could first appear in the city budget in 2011. City officials said the redevelopment could take 20 years to complete. Meanwhile, the city has completed other comprehensive plans in neighborhoods, including Wards Corner and Fairmount Park, that have clamored for redevelopment money. "The city will have to establish priorities," Mayor Paul Fraim said. "We have several competing interests we'll have to sort through."
"But in a city as large as ours, we should be able to do several large projects," he said. Councilman Don Williams said he thinks Wards Corner should get funding before St. Paul's. "We need to do things in a p
Source: PilotOnline.com