Columbus Village at Town Center (Cancelled)

[vdogg]

Hard to get a feeling for the height/massing of the office tower. The apartment section looks to be about 12/13 floors and the tower quite a bit taller than that but with about the same amount of (maybe 15) floors. This should have the presence of a 20 story building and add decently to the skyline. I wouldn't get hung up too much on these early renderings, they are very initial, and I imagine that they'll get much more detail when it goes before the Planning Commission.

[vdogg]

[vdogg]

There seems to be a substantial change from the initial design with at least the first buildings fronting Va. Beach Blvd. This is probably due to the loss of City Hall. Also, it appears that at least for the first phase they will rely on existing surface parking and no garage. This first phase may be totally private.

[HRVA]

This block was not included with the city hall proposal. This would probably be built in 2 phases as mentioned above with a new B&N & hotel on the corner and then the garage & above going in once B&N relocates. The remaining retailers would have the existing surface lot to support their operations until their inevitable relocations. 

[baobabs727]

Squatty and bland, isn't she?  Oh well.

I noticed that Barnes & Noble is listed at 18,000 ft.². The one in MacArthur is 28,000 ft.². Years ago Gerald Divaris had a vision a two-story Barnes & Noble. I don't think we'll be seeing that here, but that has more to do digitization & with the state of the book selling industry. Barnes & Noble revenues/same store sales down 7% year-over-year recently. 

Incremental development is OK. Steady as she goes. Looks like in this case, they'll end up finishing the three parcels by...2030?  A complete guess. I think during the presentation to Council when they were considering moving City Hall there was to finish the entire thing  by around 2024. 

Looking forward to taller buildings and better architecture on the former Gateway project parcel--and eventually, someday, somehow--Taco Hell!

Edited October 23, 2017 by baobabs727

[baobabs727]

18 hours ago, urbanlife said:

nul

 

18 hours ago, urbanlife said:

Nothing special but it does look like what I would expect for VB and the town center. My hope is that the eastern end isn't designed to be a dead end because it is still possible to extend the town center further east. Also, when is it gonna stop being called the "town center?" It has skyscrapers and the tallest building in Virginia, it isn't a center of a town, it is the center of a city. Call it what it is, "Virginia Beach City Center."

Unfortunately, it might just be a dead end. Look at the satellite  imagery below. Next door directly East along the Boulevard is a shopping center with tons of prime 58 frontage $$ that's not more than 20 years old.  Behind that to the South is a sizeable apartment or condo complex I believe.   Another apartment or condo development is located NNE of this one. I don't see Armada Hoffler ponying up the tens of millions of dollars it would take to acquire these three parcels.  It would not make economic sense here. Maybe in Atlanta or NOVA, but not here. Not at this time anyway. Maybe if we fast forward 30 years.  

Much better luck if they are all apartments. But if they are condos, it'll never happen.  

Finally, to the East of those developments is a waterway/tributary. That's a total no-go.

Perhaps A/H could develop on a non-grid or an irregular... or L-shaped pattern, as long as  they could acquire most of the property along the Boulevard. That would be the shopping center.  I could definitely see that happening. 

Edited October 23, 2017 by baobabs727

[BFG]

I think they need a big store on the ground level. I'd move the B&N or Bed Bath and Beyond to that building to give it an urban feel.

[HRVA]

25 minutes ago, BFG said:

I think they need a big store on the ground level. I'd move the B&N or Bed Bath and Beyond to that building to give it an urban feel.

The B&N is written in for the first floor SW corner of the building.  

[Virginia City]

There is plenty of land in the area going to Thalia Creek to the East and Bonney Rd to the South. No need to take out any of the apt complexes until the rest is built out. That will take a long time and by then those complexes will be in need of replacing anyway and may be cheap to buy.

[HRVA]

Honestly the condos east of Regal wouldn't be terrible. They're selling for under $150k and eyeball count of 45 units would be about $6.75 million. Obviously it wouldn't be that simple but AH spent a lot more buying the shopping centers. $8.8 million & 1.275 million shares for the north and 2 million shares for the south. 

Edit:  My eyeball count was good but didn't take into account that there's units on each floor - so make it 90 units. 

Edited October 24, 2017 by 23320

[baobabs727]

It's going to be a lot more than 6.75 million. Additionally, these owners would all have to agree to sell… individually.  Good luck with that. Whereas with an apartment complex, there's one owner or a group  who could sell all at once. 

Plenty of land?  Not totally undeveloped, & not owned by folks who would want to sell to them. The rest is owned by folks who want to develop for themselves.

In any event, I was responding to a specific question posed by urbanlife with regard to this new TC expansion phase dead-ending at the very adjacent parcel to the East. 

[urbanlife]

5 hours ago, baobabs727 said:

 

Unfortunately, it might just be a dead end. Look at the satellite  imagery below. Next door directly East along the Boulevard is a shopping center with tons of prime 58 frontage $$ that's not more than 20 years old.  Behind that to the South is a sizeable apartment or condo complex I believe.   Another apartment or condo development is located NNE of this one. I don't see Armada Hoffler ponying up the tens of millions of dollars it would take to acquire these three parcels.  It would not make economic sense here. Maybe in Atlanta or NOVA, but not here. Not at this time anyway. Maybe if we fast forward 30 years.  

Much better luck if they are all apartments. But if they are condos, it'll never happen.  

Finally, to the East of those developments is a waterway/tributary. That's a total no-go.

Perhaps A/H could develop on a non-grid or an irregular... or L-shaped pattern, as long as  they could acquire most of the property along the Boulevard. That would be the shopping center.  I could definitely see that happening. 

 

It might ultimately be a dead end, but I would hope that it wouldn't be planned as one. The problem with these types of urban developments in the suburbs is when they are done with a boundary that isn't designed to be extended. Main should so that in the future it could potentially be extended.

[baobabs727]

38 minutes ago, urbanlife said:

It might ultimately be a dead end, but I would hope that it wouldn't be planned as one. The problem with these types of urban developments in the suburbs is when they are done with a boundary that isn't designed to be extended. Main should so that in the future it could potentially be extended.

Indeed. Agreed! 

[vdogg]

In the AH conference call, some very (and surprisingly) bullish statements about the high end market in Va. Beach. They even compared us in a favorable light to Charlotte, which they kinda hedged their bets on.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4118723-armada-hoffler-properties-ahh-ceo-louis-haddad-q3-2017-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=12

"Fortunately, in Virginia Beach, that's a great question, Paul. Fortunately, in Virginia Beach, we really can’t be challenged on the location. I think you guys have heard me mention before, as I am sitting here in our conference room, I’m looking out at probably three apartment projects that are often a distance of a mile or two away. I think there is total a of seven of them, conference around us, and the advertisements that we hear on the radio is that you can walk to Town Center or you can bike to Town Center, its minutes from Town Center or blah, blah, blah, and we continue to say and if you pay a little bit more, you can actually live in Town Center.

So, we really don't have competition at the top end here in this market. Now that said, I’m glad you brought it up, for years Cosmopolitan has been the leading rent per square foot getter in Virginal Beach. It is now over 10 years old and the two products, the one that’ up at the encore next door on one side and the Premier that's going up on the new block on the other side, are going to eclipse it if we're not careful. So, next year we are going to go on a major refresh of the facility and make sure it stays at the top. That's kind of a long answer to a short question. But, in Virginia Beach, we believe that we are going to continue to be able to command the highest rents, irrespective of what's going on in the market.

Now in other places where we think we have a location, but not a single location, for instance our Harding Place project in Charlotte. Charlotte remains robust but our project where it's really well locating amongst several that are really well located in Charlotte, and those are kind of places where we really need to see some caution, hopefully amongst our brethren in the development business, because at some point, you are not going to be able to drive rents. We’re going to be really cautious about anything other than A+ location at the high-end."

[urbanvb]

The demand to live in TC has really ramped up over the last couple of years. I find especially interesting how they intend a major refresh for the Cosmopolitan which is just over 10 years old. I can see Columbus Village being redeveloped rather quickly if this trend continues.

I think it would be awesome if Main Street was extended east to include more mixed use retail/restaurants, etc to offer a larger footprint for the center.  And also Divaris could purchase the old ChickFila location, Sprint and the mattress store along with the shopping center with the Petsmart, Hallmark, etc, (Columbus Village East)  and even further extend Main Street. 

 

Edited November 1, 2017 by urbanvb

[urbanlife]

5 hours ago, urbanvb said:

The demand to live in TC has really ramped up over the last couple of years. I find especially interesting how they intend a major refresh for the Cosmopolitan which is just over 10 years old. I can see Columbus Village being redeveloped rather quickly if this trend continues.

I think it would be awesome if Main Street was extended east to include more mixed use retail/restaurants, etc to offer a larger footprint for the center.  And also Divaris could purchase the old ChickFila location, Sprint and the mattress store along with the shopping center with the Petsmart, Hallmark, etc, (Columbus Village East)  and even further extend Main Street. 

 

That is what I would like to see happen with the Town Center too, it wouldn't be too difficult to extend Main St that far and take down that strip mall and even the two apartment complexes to redevelop that whole area into more urban blocks.

[vdogg]

Looks like the first small part of this development has been submitted to the planning commission. Not sure where the restaurant is going. 

[vdogg]

Looks like it will be occupying the building in the B&N parking lot at the corner of Constitution and VB Blvd. Makes me wonder if this is a temporary lease while they wait to develop the property.

[HRVA]

2 hours ago, vdogg said:

Looks like it will be occupying the building in the B&N parking lot at the corner of Constitution and VB Blvd. Makes me wonder if this is a temporary lease while they wait to develop the property.

I saw this and thought the same thing. It does seem unusual for this to be a site plan if that's the case though. 

[vdogg]

That's what's confusing me. I wouldn't think that a site plan would be required to occupy an existing building. I haven't seen that happen before.

[Up2313]

A site plan has been submitted. A one story restaurant has been propossed on the corner with a small footprint and fronting the street. The plan also calls for streetscape improvements east and south to each roadway entrances, in accordance with the rest of town center style. 

[vdogg]

This will mean a change to the rest of the site plan when they do finally develop that land. Might as well toss those renderings out the window.

[urbanlife]

5 hours ago, vdogg said:

This will mean a change to the rest of the site plan when they do finally develop that land. Might as well toss those renderings out the window.

Those early renderings are just potential massing models, nothing more. They are just to give you an idea of what could go there, not what will go there. I wouldn't be surprised to see much of this area redeveloped to look similar to what you are seeing on the Premier Apartments block.

[metalman]

What is Madison Park?  The only thing I could find in searching is 11 Madison Park which is a suuuper swanky restaurant on Madison Ave in NYC.

[baobabs727]

One would think they would wanna tear down that bldg and start anew? Valuable land in a primo corner location such as this calls for some verticality, imo.

Perhaps they're calling this expansion phase of TC, "Madison Park?"  Your guess is as good as mine, though I seem to recall that  James Madison was essentially the father of the Constitution...and that this development borders Constitution St.....

Edited June 25, 2018 by baobabs727