
                         THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 4, 1994                    TAG: 9406040011 
SECTION: FRONT                     PAGE: A8    EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: Medium 
DATELINE: 940604                                 LENGTH:

HARBORFEST '94: FUN AND MORE

{LEAD} The first Harborfests, in the latter half of the 1970s, demonstrated that Norfolk's downtown waterfront - empty and unsightly - could draw throngs to the old port city to view tall ships, parachutists, fireworks and aerial acrobatics and to eat, drink and be merry.

Those early festivals foreshadowed a downtown revival that most urban experts, real-estate professionals, developers and local residents would have found implausible at best. There was abundant evidence to support pessimism.

{REST} Upper-middle- and middle-income families were moving out and newcomers to South Hampton Roads opted for Virginia Beach. Virginia Beach and Chesapeake boomed. Norfolk's population became smaller, older, poorer. Once the regional retailing center, downtown Norfolk became shabbier and emptier as department stores, upscale specialty shops and movie theaters closed their doors.

But Norfolk's leaders - political, business, professional, civic - were committed to a renaissance. And piece by piece, a new downtown with new office buildings was emerging amid the wreckage of the old. Between 1977 and 1994, appraised value of downtown real estate multiplied more than tenfold.

Now the downtown waterfront is an enticing mecca, from Harbor Park to the southeast to Nauticus, the National Maritime Museum, and Freemason Harbor to the northwest. The projected MacArthur Center on the long-vacant 17 acres between the MacArthur Memorial and the Moses Myers house, downtown could again become the most potent magnet for Hampton Roads consumers.

Harborfest - like other annual local festivals - is a regional joy. But it has always had a serious purpose: To help breathe life into an aging, hemmed-in central city. Predictably, Harborfest revelers this weekend are finding much to please them - indeed, with Nauticus' opening, much more to please them than last year. So is all Norfolk.

by CNB