THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 5, 1996 TAG: 9606050353
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 41 lines
Mayor Paul D. Fraim returned Tuesday night from a meeting in Washington with Henry G. Cisneros, Director of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, without definitive word over the fate of $33 million in federal loan guarantees for the planned MacArthur Center mall.
``We had a good meeting,'' Fraim said. ``The dialogue continues.''
Fraim was accompanied in Washington by Vice Mayor Paul R. Riddick, special aide on development issues Robert B. Smithwick, and deputy city manager Darlene L. Burcham. The delegation returned to Norfolk at 8 p.m., where they met with the rest of the council for a closed-door, two-hour executive session.
After this session, Fraim said the negotiations with HUD over the loan, which would be used to build the luxury Nordstrom department store that will anchor the mall, were going well but had not produced any definite results.
The proffered loan guarantees by HUD are held up over a disagreement between the federal agency and Nordstrom over the conditions of the loan. In what city officials say was a last-minute change, HUD has required that 51 percent of the jobs at the department store be guaranteed for low- and moderate-income people. Previously, these jobs had only to be ``made available.'' Nordstrom has refused the stiffer requirement, and the city has been attempting to fashion a compromise.
Last week, the City Council gave the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority approval to seek the loan from private banks without federal support.
The late-night executive session Tuesday night capped an unusually long day for the council. Earlier in the afternoon, the council met for its regular afternoon meeting. Waiting for Fraim and Riddick to arrive from Washington, the council adjourned for dinner and reconvened at about 8 p.m. for an executive session.
Council members would not comment on what was discussed in the executive session, except to say that the status of the federal loans was just one of several issues discussed.
KEYWORDS: NORFOLK CITY COUNCIL by CNB