DATE: Saturday, May 31, 1997                TAG: 9705310280

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:  114 lines

TEARING DOWN A CITY EYESORE NEW OWNER OF YACHT CLUB ENVISIONS CONDOS, A MARINA AND MORE.

Like a modern-age brontosaurus, the sprawling '50s-vintage structure squats in marsh grass on a bank of the Lafayette River.

Once, the Lafayette Yacht Club teemed with people playing, swimming and dancing.

By summer's end, if all goes according to plan, the eyesore in the sunrise shadow of the Granby Street Bridge will be torn down.

A demolition permit was issued Friday and a site plan was approved earlier this week.

The yacht club's new owner, Peter G. Decker, envisions upscale condos or townhouses. Perhaps both. A nice restaurant. A marina. The only thing holding him up, he says, is nearby Granby Street.

But city planners are at work on several initiatives to improve the Granby business corridor. These include a landscaped median, more street lighting and zoning amendments for new businesses.

Today, a lone sea gull issues a raucous cry and flaps noisily away as a visitor approaches the decrepit club. An empty easy chair stares out across the expanse of water from the end of the concrete dock.

The floors and ceilings of the hollow hulk of a clubhouse are buckled and bulging. It was built above 40,000 truckloads of soil packed onto the 8-acre tract.

Two years ago, Decker, a soft spot for one of his old haunts, bought the property. He paid $300,000 at auction, a bargain for prime waterfront property along one of the city's main thoroughfares and sandwiched between two strong and cohesive Norfolk neighborhoods - Colonial Place and Riverview.

``The citizens of Norfolk don't deserve to have that blight in the middle of their city,'' said Decker, who lives in Lakewood, about a mile distant as the gull flies. ``My wife Bess said, `Tear it down or give it away.'

``I can't see my family putting up $10 million with the (road) frontage as it is,'' Decker said. He would not be more specific except to say that development of the site might be a joint venture, or he might sell the property once demolition and site improvement are complete.

Out on Granby, a hodgepodge of commercial buildings lies haphazard as tossed dice. An abandoned fast-food restaurant turned car wash. An auto repair shop, a bakery, a real estate office. A tasty smattering of ethnic eateries. A gentlemen's club.

Brian Townsend, development services bureau manager for the city's planning department, said three plans could vastly improve the little business hub. The plans were developed after meetings with residents and the business association, he said.

A recommendation for replacing the center turn lane with a landscaped median will be passed on to the city manager soon, he said. Sidewalks were considered too narrow for landscape improvements, he said, though old-fashioned lantern street lights would dot the walks.

Zoning amendments would restrict the district, Townsend said. Now, zoning allows the same types of businesses permitted on Military Highway and Little Creek Road.

Also under consideration is a grant program for the city to match up to half of $15,000 investments to improve the exteriors of properties, including landscaping.

Townsend said he hopes zoning changes and median landscaping will be approved by the end of summer. He said planners, residents and business representatives had considered the defunct Lafayette Yacht Club in the scheme of things and concluded that it would be difficult for Decker to develop the property while the Lafayette Motor Hotel still stands.

Like the club, it's from the '50s. The city hasn't decided what to do with it. Also fronting the club property is the vacant site of a burned-out building.

The Granby plan is one of three to upgrade commercial areas outside downtown, Townsend said.

Getting approval to tear down the club house was tedious, Decker said.

Because about three-fourths of the structure stands above a tidal zone, environmental agencies and boards at all levels had to sign off on the plan. ``It's close to approval,'' said Lee Rosenberg, manager for the Environmental Services Bureau of the Department of Planning and Codes. ``But I haven't seen anything like it. Water goes under the building and feeds a vegetated marsh on the other side. There's a tidal flow underneath. It's going to be an interesting operation.''

Getting approvals for any development within the tidal area presents much higher hurdles.

The Army Corps of Engineers, with jurisdiction over wetlands that fall within the high tide limit, would need to pass on any plans as would the same plethora of city agencies involved in the demo plan.

At one time, the Lafayette Yacht Club was the largest facility of its kind on the East Coast south of New York. It was the dream of Vernon T. Myers Jr. who, in 1955, gathered four of his Norfolk business peers and inspired them with his enthusiasm.

But membership dwindled in the early 1970s as Granby Street's commercial prominence waned. In the financial crunch of the times, maintenance work slowed. Pipes began to rust. Floor joists deteriorated.

After the Lafayette closed for good, a ship repair company converted the big building into berthing and mess facilities for crews off ships being overhauled at its downtown waterfront yard. Then the Cold War ended, and the Navy started retiring ships.

Inside the cavernous old clubhouse - which rests on 900 creosoted pilings - red spray-painted graffiti shouts from the white cinder-block walls, and fluorescent light fixtures dangle from electrical cords. Dozens of bunk cubicles stand at odd angles to each other amid the ruin and rubble of one large room, likely the one once used as a ballroom.

In another berth, the dry and well-worn leather toes of a pair of tan work boots crease upward.

Outside, close to the river, the murky water of the Olympic-sized pool rusts ladders, slides and chairs that jut menacingly from the depths. Nearby, in the slime of the kiddie pool, creatures so quick as to be unidentifiable dart for the cover of islands of trash.

The only color in this drab scene are the vibrant hues of a 10- by 80-foot mosaic tile mural that runs the length of a second-floor terrace wall. The art depicts the progress of the Navy from the Merrimack-Monitor battle to 1960. It's a bit ragged these days, and colorful little squares that have blown or fallen off the mural and elsewhere decorate the building and grounds like confetti. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by BILL TIERNAN

The long-unused old Lafayette Yacht Club is on the Lafayette River,

adjacent to Norfolk's Granby Street Bridge.

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