THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 13, 1994 TAG: 9410110091
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: MIKE KNEPLER
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
The bright plum-colored signs pointed down the rutted road and through the tall weeds.
Suddenly, just over a little rise in the land, about three dozen families were spreading picnic blankets and setting down lawn chairs.
Just beyond them, the choppy Elizabeth River played host to a gliding sailboat and a ponderous cargo container ship.
And Clyde Benton acted like a Virginia colonist, showing off a few acres freshly hewn from the wilderness.
This was Benton's way of demonstrating ideas he developed with a few friends: that this five-acre nib of land could be turned into a park and that people would come.
The name would be simple enough. Plum Point Park.
Finding it also is easy, although it might not look that way. From a short distance, it appears that you'll need a machete to hack your way in.
It's not quite that bad, and the city's parks and redevelopment agencies mowed much of the overgrowth to help the recent picnickers. The site, overlooking the river, is just east of the Midtown Tunnel, south of Brambleton Avenue and less than a half-mile west of Colley Avenue. You drive in from Southampton Avenue, a small street branching off of Colley.
Benton, president of the West Ghent Civic League, says he believes the point was created from the dumping of fill when the Midtown Tunnel was built in the 1950s. Its vegetation sprang from the droppings of birds flying above.
On a recent Sunday, Benton proved Plum Point's accessibility by choosing it as the spot for West Ghent's annual ``Fall Fling.''
But, he asserted, Plum Point should be a park for all of Norfolk, not just West Siders. More parks, he said, should improve the city's livability.
In the mid-1980s, a development team proposed a multimillion dollar condominium-marina-hotel complex. The Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority rejected the bid and reserved the land for possible medical-related development.
Benton is afraid of something even worse: waterfront parking lots. He gives more reasons for turning the land into Plum Point Park:
As the last vacant riverfront site in the downtown area, it should be used to enhance public access to the water. He also suggests that the Elizabeth River ferry add Plum Point as another stop.
Its location, along a working waterfront surrounded by tugboats, barges and commercial fishing boats, would be educational for generations growing up with little exposure to Norfolk's maritime traditions.
It can help awareness of nearby historic Fort Norfolk.
It can be a quiet spot for employees and patients of the nearby medical center. Benton suggests construction of a walkway over busy Brambleton Avenue.
Benton even loves the rotting piers just off the point and the abandoned railway tracks at the property's north end.
Broken piers are part of the experience. The old rail bed, he added, should be turned into a walking, jogging and bicycling path that could be the basis for a continuous route from West Ghent's Bluebird Park to downtown's Harbor Park stadium.
``We understand the limitations of the city's budget,'' Benton said. ``We're not trying to make demands. We're just simply trying to say, `Put this in your long-range planning.' ''
Picnickers agreed as Benton served his ideas with fried chicken, hush puppies, lemonade and beer.
``We don't have many waterfront places where the citizens can come and look at the river and see the harbor and see the traffic on the harbor. This is one of our vital industries,'' said Ed Millan, a West Ghent resident since 1970. ``This is for the whole city.''
Mayor Paul Fraim says he thinks the Plum Point Park idea is worth considering, even if the park would be temporary.
``It's something I'd like to be in favor of,'' he said. ``It's on the water, and the property could be valuable. But I think the idea of using it for a park for the time being is a positive one and intriguing. . . . Sounds to me like it could be doable.''
Fraim said he would like city planners to study the idea.
``I think we probably need to get it on the table,'' he said.
That's all Benton needs to feed his hopes.
``It's here,'' Benton said of Plum Point. ``It's a natural.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by JOSEPH JOHN KOTLOWSKI
The West Ghent Civic League enjoys a picnic on the waterfront point
that it hopes will become Plum Point Park.
by CNB