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Virginia Beach Development

vdogg

By vdogg
in Virginia Beach

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urbanlife
urbanlife

This would be a good time for an alternative weekly paper to move in and become the local press.

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  • 4 weeks later...
urbanlife Town

urbanlife

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hopefully who ever jumps on board with this will bring some more good architecture for the city. It would be nice to see some sort of urban center spawn up next to the convention center. It doesn't need to be tall (thanks to Oceana), but it could be very dense and would be a great ploy for the city to push harder for linking up to light rail.

I could see VB pushing light rail in a tourist sense. Have it run from the oceanfront to the convention center to "downtown" VB. And at that point, I could see them deciding to connect it to the Norfolk line and going in it together to create a line to the airport.

If this all were to happen, it would surely lead to Norfolk and Virginia Beach to become the dominate force to the HR region...granted they mostly already are, they just need to work together more. I really wish VB and Norfolk would work together more like a twin city. I think if they did, it would have a strong impact on their economic futures.

Shame I moved away, I probably would of ran for a city council seat sooner or later in my life, haha.

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urbanvb City

urbanvb

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While I agree the center needs a convention center type hotel I am not happy about the thought of the city spending tax money to help to build it. It just seems there has to be a better way than spending millions of taxpayers dollars to build something that we will probably never utilize. Ideas? Thoughts?

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urbanlife Town

urbanlife

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While I agree the center needs a convention center type hotel I am not happy about the thought of the city spending tax money to help to build it. It just seems there has to be a better way than spending millions of taxpayers dollars to build something that we will probably never utilize. Ideas? Thoughts?

Welcome to the club, we are having that same issue here in Portland as well. There is a need for a convention center hotel, but who is going to foot the bill for it. And sorry, I got no answers for you because on one hand it is a good benefit for the city, on the other hand, cities should not be getting into the hotel business for any reason.

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Alpine757 Whistle-Stop

Alpine757

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The other day when I was driving down 264 towards town center I noticed a couple new buildings, several stories tall, going up just to the west of the big Verizon building on the north side of the interstate (near newtown exit?). Sparked my curiosity, was just wondering if anyone knew what these buildings were, whether they were just office space or potentially something more?

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RJWGMU Whistle-Stop

RJWGMU

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The other day when I was driving down 264 towards town center I noticed a couple new buildings, several stories tall, going up just to the west of the big Verizon building on the north side of the interstate (near newtown exit?). Sparked my curiosity, was just wondering if anyone knew what these buildings were, whether they were just office space or potentially something more?

No clue, but based on the are it is probably more office buildings, not unlike the office park across from Mt. Trashmore I would guess.

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  • 3 weeks later...
vdogg Megalopolis

vdogg

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Beach officials looking for big ideas

Why do I have the feeling that i'll be underwhelmed by whatever they decide?

A year ago, city officials were sifting through a series of plans to turn the Oceanfront into a more modern resort.

One pitch called for a monorail at the old Dome site. Another had a Hyatt hotel attached to the Virginia Beach Convention Center. A third plan, from a South Korean firm, had soaring towers on both of those sites.

Then, nothing.

The Koreans pulled out. Beach-based developer Armada Hoffler withdrew the monorail idea. The Hyatt plan never came to a vote, and neither did another from a local company to build a headquarters hotel for the convention center.

Publicly, leaders have said little in the past year about the future of the Dome site or the need for a headquarters hotel.

Quietly, they

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spiker3 Hamlet

spiker3

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Beach officials looking for big ideas

Why do I have the feeling that i'll be underwhelmed by whatever they decide?

I'm cautiously optimistic, they're looking at great places and seeking out some good ideas. They don't seem to take Harmon Hospitality's offer to make the DoubleTree bigger too seriously to consider it a HQ hotel, which is great news. Plus the fact that Gartraub from Dallas is still planning a big is good news as well, they're proposing a Hyatt and are still putting together a serious offer a year later. I think the best possible thing the VBCC can do is adopt two proposals, one for the land immediately next to the convention center to build a luxury/upper end hotel, as well as find a proposal to turn the Dome site into a entertainment destination, ala Hoffler's initial proposal. AH got all high and mighty and demanded exclusivity and wanted a monorail which was insane, but take those two out and you had a good idea. As dedicated as they seem to be to getting this right (they've waited over a year) i could see this coming out very well.

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vdogg Megalopolis

vdogg

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In that location, density will probably not be a problem. The Navy understands the importance of the oceanfront area as an economic engine. The height of structures could be an issue, however.

Actually, density is as much of a factor than height in the APZs, they really don't want a bunch of people living under their flight paths. Now if this were to focus on hotel, office, and entertainment only we may be able to come up with something that's acceptable.

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vdogg Megalopolis

vdogg

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These buildings look about 15-20 stories in height. We may be able to sneak this one past the Navy since we already have buildings down there in that range. Any type of residential density though will be a big nono to them. Everytime I think how much the location of that base holds us back it irritates me. We really need to come to a solution that will allow us to eventually part ways with Oceana without breaking the bank.

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  • 3 weeks later...
mistermetaj Hamlet

mistermetaj

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That IS very interesting, AND exciting.... I sure hope all of them want to build it without city money, otherwise people will be screaming and hollering for years about it... Well, that likely excludes Armada Hoffler then! :) I like the concept of the ski slope... I recently saw a show about the one in Dubai and it is amazing!

I actually like the idea of a wave pool and skydiving wind tunnel. That sounds amazing to me. Not to mention the 10 movie theaters. The problem with the dubai development is the developer said "night club." That is going to completely turn city council off to the idea. Too bad, it would have been interesting.

I wonder if the city can use more than just one of these ideas. There's a lot of crappy land use at the ocean front, it would be good if it had more than one destination area to attract more tourists. OR, how about even building one or two of these ideas at town center. None of them on the surface seemed to require the ocean to be near by. And if light rail is installed, there will be easy movement from one to the other.

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spiker3 Hamlet

spiker3

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The only thing about this project is the City Council needs to pick a project that has regional interest as well as tourist interest. It's a waste of land to build an attraction that's only good from May through September. Wave pools, indoor ski slops and extreme parks are fine on paper, and work well in Dubai, Florida, and Bahamas where there's tourism all year round, but in order for this to be viable it needs to appeal to Virginia Beach residents first, Hampton Roads residents second and tourists third. The worst thing the city council could do right now is to award the development of some gimmicky idea that looks great on a vacation brouchere. A multi-use district, with retail, entertainment and some attraction is the only realistic way for this to be successful.

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