Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 1, 1993 TAG: 9305010139
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BONNIE V. WINSTON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
Seattle had one. So did San Antonio, Knoxville and New York.
And if Frank Jewell has his way, southeastern Virginia will, too.
Jewell, director of Richmond's Valentine Museum, wants to bring a World's Fair to Hampton Roads and Richmond in 2007, the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown settlement.
Spread among a host of sites in the two metro areas, the fair would "reposition" Virginia to its former prominence - from the 17th-century gateway to the New World to a 21st-century gateway to America, Jewell contends.
Jewell has given a sales pitch and glitzy slide presentation on the plan to dozens of business and political leaders in the Hampton-Roads-to-Richmond corridor. He did the same on Thursday for a reporter. Highlights:
The fair would be centered around the site of a proposed "superairport" in the peanut country near Wakefield, in Sussex County, but would incorporate existing and planned tourist spots like Williamsburg and Jamestown, Norfolk's Nauticus and Valentine Riverside, a waterfront development in Richmond.
A high-speed rail line from Washington, D.C., to Virginia Beach, with legs straddling the James River, would link the attractions and take people to the main fair site.
A convention center, twice the size of Chicago's lakefront McCormick Place, would be built near the airport site as the main exhibition hall for the fair.
A major theme park, with a mega-midway, also would be constructed close to the fair's center. Jewell suggested that the owners of Busch Gardens in Williamsburg or Paramount's Kings Dominion in Hanover County might be persuaded to abandon their current property to develop at the new site.
The two metro areas have a population base rivaling that of Los Angeles, he said (the LA metro area is several times larger, however). And because the region boasts more corporate headquarters and major services than any place between New York and Atlanta, there's no reason why southeastern Virginia can't put on a World's Fair, Jewell said.
"Lack of nerve" would be the biggest drawback, he said.
But several Hampton Roads businessmen who have seen Jewell's presentation in recent weeks suggested that lack of money also could be a problem.
"I saw a lovely, conceptual presentation that is stored in my memory," said Jack Pope, president of GSH Real Estate, who saw Jewell's slide show at an April board meeting of the Future of Hampton Roads. "But I didn't see enough about the economics of it, the practicality of it and the politics of it to determine the reality of it.
"Until somebody puts some pencil to paper on it and shows us a way, then . . ." Pope said.
But Jewell has support.
Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce Chairman James Babcock is ready to take Jewell's ideas to the next level. He has had informal discussions with other business leaders about forming an authority or commission to begin planning. Questions about financing, possible sites and scope of the project would be tackled, he said.
"Aside from a wonderful party, a World's Fair would stimulate economic development. I think it's worth a second look," said Babcock, chairman and chief executive officer of First Virginia Bank of Tidewater.
"It's too early to evaluate how all these things would be done," Babcock continued. "I see [Jewell's] presentation more as a list of ideas to stimulate thinking. Just what will come out, who knows? Maybe not a World's Fair, but maybe we'll have a new museum in Williamsburg."
"By working together - Richmond and Hampton Roads - who knows what we can achieve?"
Jewell acknowledges that the fair is "an excuse" to spur development in the region. Working against a deadline on a project that would create jobs, attract national and international tourists and benefit each locality in the area, the fair would leave in place an infrastructure to help boost the area long after 2007, he said.
The high-speed trains, modeled after French "bullet" trains, would be built at Hampton Roads shipyards as part of the national defense conversion effort, Jewell said.
The convention center could be used after the fair to attract national conventions to Virginia, he continued. Or it could be incorporated into the superairport, which would not be built until about 2010 or 2020. The high-speed rail line would remain after the fair to bring passengers to the superairport.
John P. Kidd, executive director of the Richmond Regional Planning District Commission, which has been working on the superairport project, said pegging the fair to the airport may prove the first stumbling block.
Plans for the superairport have been put on hold until consultants evaluate the feasibility of expanding the existing airports in Norfolk, Richmond or Newport News into a superport, he said.
Further, the financially depressed airline industry, reeling from bankruptcies and huge losses among the dominant carriers, is reluctant to bear the cost associated with a new airport, Kidd said. The Denver airport, which has taken 15 years and $5 billion to complete, will open later this year. It is the first major airport to be built in the U.S. since the Dallas-Fort Worth airport in 1976 .
Kidd also cautioned that all three major eastern Virginia airports have marshland problems that may preclude large-scale development. And he noted that pressures from environmental laws and historic-preservation groups may block the rail lines and river crossings needed to move people to a fair.
"There is no problem that can't be solved with money," Kidd said. "But I don't know if money will be no object in this case.
"I don't want to be a cold water person," continued Kidd, who has not seen the slide show. "But . . . I've become increasingly skeptical on how you're going to pay for these things. I can see the idea and the concept. But if you ask anybody [in government], `Can you do that by 2007?' the answer would be, `No way!'
"Now, if some private organization wants to do it, fine. But I bet you if your tax money or mine were involved, it would be more difficult," he added.
Jewell suggests that a combination of federal transportation and airport funds, state-backed bonds, junk bonds, special area taxes and admission fees would pay for the fair.
A certain amount of persuasion also would be thrown in, particularly in getting a theme park interested.
"You can convince someone to do anything as long as they will make more money," Jewell said.
Even among those whom Jewell proposes to uproot, there is a certain endorsement, however mixed with uncertainty.
"Frank's vision is wonderful, whether or not you have a theme park," said Wilson Flohr, general manager of Paramount's Kings Dominion. "He is truly creative and a visionary."
But Flohr said it is "unlikely" Paramount would close the theme park, one of three the movie-making firm purchased just last year in a $400 million deal, only to rebuild on a new tract between Richmond and Hampton Roads.
by CNB