THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 26, 1996 TAG: 9604260494
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: Decision '96
Part 2: The Issues
SOURCE: BY IDA KAY JORDAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 129 lines
For some people, it's finding jobs. For others, filling empty buildings. Still others think of economic development as providing places to shop within the city. And a few even think of business in terms of increasing the city's tax base.
Whatever their perception of business, many Portsmouth residents list economic development along with education and crime as their three top concerns in this election season.
From Downtown to the MidCity shopping center to Tower Mall, the exodus of long-established retail businesses has been devastating to residents accustomed to shopping in town. In many instances, the departures were not caused by a lack of business in Portsmouth locations but rather by corporate decisions to move on to larger facilities in newer developments - or by corporate financial troubles that precipitated closures throughout the country.
For instance, when Leggett closed its Downtown department store, company officials freely conceded that the store made money - but that they wanted to have a larger store and stay open longer in Chesapeake Square mall. Bradlee's is owned by a company that filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization some time ago and announced the closing of many stores. The company left Tower Mall when a lease expired. Two Rose's discount stores in Portsmouth also closed when the parent company filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code.
The city lost some of its best manufacturing jobs several years ago with the closing of two peanut butter factories, a London Fog manufacturing facility and deep cutbacks at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard - all because of downsizing.
The departure of chemical giant Hoechst-Celanese's local offices, bank mergers and the paring of many white-collar staffs also have taken their toll on local employment in the 1990s.
Citizens, however, seem not so much interested in why the city lost the businesses as they are in what Portsmouth will do to replace them. Empty buildings around the city are constant reminders of these losses, even for citizens who were not directly affected by job losses.
People have grown anxious, even though over the past three years Portsmouth has been pulling slowly out of a slump in new development. And the Vision 2005 plan seems to be adding impetus to the city Economic Development Department's efforts.
In response to pleas from citizens for retail shopping, the department has added a retail specialist to its staff. Although the entire city is targeted for new business, retail successes are more apt to come Downtown and eventually to MidTown, where citizen volunteers are working to implement Vision 2005.
Portsmouth residents participating in recent focus groups conducted by The Virginian-Pilot were diverse in their opinions of one of the city's most unusual efforts to spur development: the multimillion-dollar Children's Museum of Virginia. It attracted more than 200,000 people to Downtown in little more than a year. While the opening of the museum and of the Tidewater Community College Visual Arts Center, also leveraged by city money, have prompted the opening of small retail businesses and more restaurants Downtown, some of the citizens at the newspaper's ``community conversation'' sessions thought the city may have wasted money that could have been used for other things.
``I think Portsmouth is right on the cusp,'' one participant said, offering approval to the museum and art center. ``And I think this 2005 Vision has been a major miracle.''
The city is about to gain from the expansion of Rite-Aid, which is planning four megastores with drive-in prescription windows in the city, including sites on London Boulevard and in MidTown. But business development won't be limited under Vision 2005 to the area from the waterfront to MidTown. Once-empty retail spaces in Churchland and on Portsmouth Boulevard have been occupied since the city began getting fired up over the plan.
A few residents have not been eager for new retail business. When the city approved a plan for a shopping center on the old Churchland High School site on High Street, homeowners nearby filed a lawsuit questioning the School Board's authority to turn the area over to the Industrial Development Authority. Meanwhile, Caldor Discount Stores, originally interested in that center, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, and the shopping area may be scaled down to house only a Hannaford Brothers supermarket and small shops.
The city also has not landed any of the high-tech companies that have gone to other Hampton Roads cities. But Portsmouth has attracted quite a few solid companies that appear to be thriving in the community.
The break came late in 1992 when Tricare, the company that provides health insurance to military personnel, opened a regional office with about 100 employees in the former Hoechst-Celanese offices on the Downtown waterfront.
The old Skippy Peanut Butter plant is now headquarters for a commercial recycling company, and Unclaimed Freight recently bought Procter & Gamble's former Jif Peanut Butter site near the naval shipyard.
In 1993, six new businesses opened, including Lindab Inc., a Swedish duct-manufacturing company that remodeled the former Coca-Cola plant on Airline Boulevard, and Gerdau International Inc., an export-import business that moved into a 214,000-square-foot warehouse in Port Centre. Over the past two years, several smaller companies also have moved here.
In 1995, Direct Marketing Enterprises promised to build a $9.5 million mail-order marketing facility in Port Centre and hire more than 300 people. But, although the city has done extensive infrastructure work on the site, the company has not yet broken ground.
Port Centre, the large area of Newtown that was razed by the Portsmouth Redevelopment and Housing Authority, was converted into an industrial park a decade ago, but development has been slow, with only WAVY-TV headquarters and a leased warehouse-office building to show for the effort.
Economic Development Department representatives said recently that ``activity levels'' are increasing but that nobody has bought yet. Several companies are looking at the old London Fog plant, they have said. In addition, the city development staff is showing most of the other available sites, including the Cox waterfront property on the Western Branch of the Elizabeth River and some available buildings on Elmhurst Lane near Highway 164.
Equitable Insurance, the new owner of Tower Mall, has hired Divaris Real Estate of Virginia Beach to market the vast, empty spaces there. And Sentinel Real Estate of New York City, owner of the near-empty MidCity shopping center, has told city representatives it is interested in working within the Vision 2005 plan, which calls for a total realignment of the center and the streets around it.
However, citizens don't always believe what they hear.
``There will be no malls in Portsmouth,'' said another community conversation participant. But she was favorable in her comments, approving ``the direction they seem to be going in.''
KEYWORDS: PUBLIC JOURNALISM COMMUNITY CONVERSATION PORTSMOUTH ECONOMY
PORTSMOUTH CITY COUNCIL ELECTION by CNB