DATE: Wednesday, April 30, 1997             TAG: 9704300510

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B7   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   61 lines

OCEANFRONT TRACT TO BE LOT, THEN PARK

A vacant Oceanfront lot at 31st Street will become a temporary parking lot this summer, but the City Council decreed that the lot will become a grassy public park next year with ties to a yet-to-be-decided commercial use.

The council on Tuesday approved a use permit to operate the 300-by-150-foot tract as a parking lot, beginning in mid-May, but also passed a resolution calling for:

The lot, which overlooks the Atlantic Ocean, to be preserved as public open space.

City economic development officials to seek out private business interests that could be linked to the property - in the same manner that the 17th Street Oceanfront park is tied in with a Dairy Queen franchise.

The last-minute resolution was submitted by Councilman Linwood O. Branch III as public pressure was mounting to save the Oceanfront open space from future hotel or retail development.

A citizens group has been busy in the past two months circulating petitions that call for the preservation of the tract as a public park.

The city has two such parks - one at 24th Street and the other at 17th Street. Both enjoy widespread popularity as venues for concerts, ethnic food and beverage festivals, as well as lounging and picnicking.

The 31st Street lot has been leased for the past year by an ice-skating rink owner, who has since folded his operation and moved. Before that, it was used as a private and public parking lot, a carnival site and a staging area for Oceanfront concerts and recreational events.

Branch called for the city's Economic Development Authority to seek out private interests to establish a commercial operation on or adjoining the lot to help defray a $4 million investment the city has made in the land.

The move has the backing of most resort business leaders and the Resort Area Advisory Commission, a citizens panel that oversees tourism-related development projects and activities.

Until the council's unanimous vote Tuesday, backers of the move to convert the lot into a public park faced serious hurdles.

First, the tract, which lies at the east end of 31st Street (or Laskin Road) is considered prime commercial property, ripe for development and it overlooks a thriving retail corridor stretching to the west.

Second, the land is owned by the city's Economic Development Authority, which bought it in 1988 for $3.5 million, but the agency has been unable to find a buyer. The lot has been on the market since, then, but has attracted little interest from developers.

Third, the authority secured a $6 million loan from the city two years ago to pay off the debt on the lot and other commitments, and the city now holds a first deed of trust on the tract.

Branch suggested Tuesday that economic development officials look into incorporating an adjoining lot to the north - housing a cafe, skate rental and T-shirt outlets - into its overall commercial-public development scheme.

Mayor Meyera E. Oberndorf called Branch's solution a ``compromise between those who have concerns about (the city's) financial commitment and those who have an interest in public open space.''

Vice Mayor William D. Sessoms Jr. and Councilman Louis R. Jones conceded that further efforts to sell the lot as a future hotel site or any ambitious commercial venture would be futile.

``We've just put too much in the property already,'' Jones said. KEYWORDS: PARKING LOT VIRGINIA BEACH OCEANFRONT PUBLIC PARK

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