DATE: Thursday, October 16, 1997            TAG: 9710160555

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   67 lines

AFRICATOWN UNVEILED $35 MILLION PLAN WILL SPRUCE UP 35TH STREET

Stone pillars, pyramids and images from the Harlem Renaissance characterize an afrocentric architectural business plan unveiled by the 35th Street Merchants Association Wednesday.

The project, talked about since 1992, will turn Park Place's commercial corridor into a niche market known as ``AfricaTown,'' hopefully luring shoppers from the nearby Virginia Zoo and its upcoming Africa exhibit.

Phase one - the seven blocks west from Granby Street - is estimated to cost between $3 million and $7 million. When the master plan, including businesses and residences the whole length of the street, is complete in about three years, some $35 million will have been invested, planners say.

A mix of businesses and residential sections now line the primarily black commercial hub in the heart of Norfolk.

The ethnic streetscape that's mostly still on paper was created by Washington architect Maurice Jenkins, who designed pro basketball player Pervis Ellison's $2.2 million Fort Washington, Md., home.

Revamped facades with uniform and like-decorated stucco canopies will ``capture and capitalize'' upon what planners see as a crying out of blacks to celebrate their own culture, said Rodney Jordan, vice president of the association.

Merchants and property owners would put up the money for the facelifts and be reimbursed for half the cost - up to $15,000 - by the city. One business property owner has already taken this step, and work is under way on the building that houses Africa House.

Merchants and property owners who contract to have the cultural facelifts can take advantage of the city's $15,000 match program, for which the city has allocated $50,000.

Architecture on 35th Street now is a mishmash of styles that ``lack continuity,'' said Jenkins.

Businesses, too, are an eclectic mix. Launderers to hatters operate shops there. Changes include an arched gateway announcing ``AfricaTown'' that will greet visitors at the Granby Street end of 35th Street. Red, white and blue banners between buildings and familiar African images - a Sphinx head, for example - will decorate tops of buildings, which will be decorated with half circles and pyramid shapes. And various historic periods of America's black culture will adorn exposed surfaces of buildings in the form of murals.

The association hopes the changes will attract new businesses and employment to the low-to-middle income neighborhood.

Work will be done by residents of the community for which the association will pay wages of $12 to $15 an hour, said Carlos Howard, association president.

The 20-member organization approved the project in early September. Howard said he expects the majority of work on the first phase - from Granby Street west - to be completed by next summer, and hopes within three years to see 35th Street with a complete facelift all the way to Hampton Boulevard.

Howard would not divulge where the money for the project was to come from, but said, ``We'll have it. We'll pull it off.''

Howard said the city's involvement would consist of completion of infrastructure work on sidewalks and street lighting.

Also needed from officials is approval of zoning ordinances that would be similar to commercial overlays for other business areas in the city, Jordan said. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

LAWRENCE JACKSON/The Virginian-Pilot

Maurice Jenkins, lead architect for the proposed AfricaTown,

describes the theme of his vision for changing the face of 35th

Street in Norfolk.

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