The city's proposed $40 million deal to buy an old rail corridor for a possible light-rail project could cost more because a federal agency is asking questions about the land's value.

Federal Transit Administration officials say past appraisals of the 10.6-mile-long strip are too old and that a new one is needed. The concern is important because FTA approval is needed before Hampton Roads Transit can use $5 million in federal funds toward the land purchase, a key part of the multi-agency deal crafted last year to buy the corridor.

There was a Council Session for March 9th that was describing property at Market Street in Town Center.

3. Application of TOWN CENTER ASSOCIATES, LLC to EXTEND satisfaction of the
conditions for twelve (12) months in the closure of a portion of Market Street (approved
March 24, 2009) DISTRICT 5 - LYNNHAVEN
RECOMMENDATION APPROVAL


Are they getting ready to breakground soon on westin aloft hotel/apartments?

Current Agenda for March 2009

Ok, now I'm thoroughly confused. The 15 story rendering is back up right next to the 10 story rendering. Both are labeled "Two Constitution". Perhaps different iterations of the same building, which suggests to me that design is still very much in flux.

HHgregg opened today in the old Linens and Things site on VB Blvd. It will be interesting to see if they price competitively with Best Buy on electronics.

Drive-thru. Most visitors to town center don't really live within walking distance of the taco bell and most likely don't want to search for a spot, park in a garage, and walk farther than they have to for fast food. That's not saying though that fast food in urban storefronts don't work. I was in downtown Evanston the other weekend and there in fact was a Taco Bell on the ground level of an office building. The reason it works there is because downtown Evanston has more residents, workers, and visitors than Town Center, and it is about a 5 minute walk from Northwestern, so it gets a lot of foot traffic.

Thanks for pointing that out Urbanfan -- PTC is a phased development just the same, but the first phase is the main event. After this, I've read around a bit and from what I have heard Hampton is planning on crafting a grid streetplan in Coliseum Central, especially the shopping centers to the north and east of PTC. But they're planning WAY far ahead in that regard.

This is true, but what makes Taco Bell more profitable in it's current location, rather than being in say.. the ground floor of the Cosmo?

cause its suburbia

Sadly I have a feeling this building will look more like Harbor Heights than anything in Washington Heights. At least the bottom floor facade of Harbor heights is nice though. One thing I cannot understand about new developments all over the country is the lack of a nice cornice. I mean, even in the renderings above it looks as generic as possible. I nice cornice on ANY building can really make a difference.

First of all sorry to Vdogg... did not mean to up set you with my lack of rendering memory. One thing to remember is that this si just a rendering, we hhavent heard anything official. Could be someone just got lazy or proposed to shorten it but didn't, after all the old renderings are still there.

I actually hope the facade on this building comes out like Washington Heights, simple lines and good materials can do wonders:




edit: Also, remember there was going to be a second building in the 10-15 story phase, so all is not lost!

That is obviously the new rendering. that is why the other was rendering was replaced with this one and the site was updated.. That is the new rendering im afraid

Yeah its really sad that they redesigned the building into a boring blah development.. I will sure miss the 15 story proposal. I guess things change with the economy the way it is.. They probably could not receive financing unless they changed the design and cost. So they had to drop the height, cheap building material.. I dont even think they should even build this building.. it looks old fashion. Looks like a building in the washington heights area in NYC

Well they are connecting the road from here to the town center, so I dont think the marsh land will be as much of an issue, especially if they still do the walking paths through the marsh.

While the original may be taller, I never really cared for the look of it. The roof structure made it look more like a 15 story suburban building. I am not saying this new design is any better, honestly the new design looks even more generic. But the plus is that there is still alot of land for the developer to work with and if they bide their time while building this building, things might be able to pick back up in that time for them to build larger buildings.

But either way you look at it, this development will always have that separate feeling from the rest of downtown because of its location, so I think it is more important for the developer to think about its own neighborhood connections within the project than its connection to downtown.

Though I do agree, I want to see VB starting to implement their VB downtown plan and start reworking the streets into a grid fashion and start buying up as much property the city can get its hands on. The more the city owns, the more the city can control with future developments. Actually the city should be trying to buy the old HQ site and the old Krogers site simply to make that area the next phase in the urban growth and to also get that property out of the hands of a suburban developer.

The Style has changed, but I don't think it has lost that many floors:

Before (count 9 stories from the windows on the right:





After:



Now it does look like a couple of buildings have disappeared from the background, but they were rather short anyhow


Not much of a fan of the fake roof structures, but hopefully this new design will use more brick and not turn out like the Belmont at Freemason (sorry, not a fan or the design)

I may be with HarryVB on this one..

Forget this project. There's no way to create an urban, walkable district on Bonney. This project is surrounded by marshland, a major interstate, and suburban offices and hotels.

I really would rather the City of Virginia Beach spend more time and resources creating a grid system in Pembroke proper and concentrate on extremely high-density developments on the HQ lot, Pembroke mall redevelopment, FYE strip mall redevelopment. Bump this project.