DATE: Sunday, November 23, 1997             TAG: 9711230051

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:  142 lines

BIG PLANS, HIGH STAKES AT ODU PEOPLE FOR AND AGAINST ``VILLAGE'' PLAN MAY SPEAK UP TUESDAY

Millions of tax dollars, dozens of people's livelihoods, a university's reputation and a city's economic well-being are all on the table.

Much is at stake as city officials this week begin discussing, in a public hearing, a plan they hope will help Old Dominion University grow into a world-class institution and rejuvenate a 65-acre, 10-block corridor along the east side of Hampton Boulevard. It is a plan that officials say is critical for the long-term success of both the city and the region.

They envision a bustling university village, with garden apartments and townhouses linked to ODU's computer network, a central shopping center with a supermarket, and private office and research laboratories intended to put ODU on the cutting edge of important new technology developments.

There seems to be something for everybody: new jobs, economic development, prestige for the region, and a safer, prettier neighborhood in an area pocked with blight and a hodgepodge of clashing industrial, commercial and residential activity.

But the progress, some fear, will come at a price too high to pay.

Standing in the path of these plans are more than 60 businesses, many of them thriving institutions in their own right, providing hundreds of jobs and a solid tax base that in 1995 generated an estimated $1.1 million in revenue for the city.

There are also two churches and more than 400 housing units providing homes for an estimated 400 to 900 residents, many of them students.

Under the proposal, the businesses and residences would be bought up - obtained through government condemnation powers if necessary - and razed. The land would then be used for the university's planned expansion or sold to private developers who would build the new commercial district.

The proposal is easily one of the most ambitious undertaken in recent years by a city with a history of remaking itself by bulldozing the old to make way for the new. The 65-acre tract is bordered by Hampton Boulevard to the west, 48th Street to the north, Killam Avenue to the east and 38th Street to the south.

On Tuesday, the city's proposal to designate the 10-block section as a redevelopment project will go before the public for comment at a hearing held jointly by the City Council, the city Planning Commission and the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority's Board of Commissioners.

The hearing may be the only chance citizens get to voice their views.

The university's plans to expand across Hampton Boulevard, on the drawing board for at least four years, have the support of Mayor Paul D. Fraim and a majority of the City Council. Those plans - to construct a $40 million, 10,000-seat convocation center accompanied by two parking garages - are separate from the city's redevelopment plans and are not part of the public hearing.

But city and ODU officials view both components as critical.

``This is one of the most important strategies going on in this city at this time,'' Fraim said.

Just as important as the convocation center, comparable in size to Scope, are plans to expand ODU's research facilities, a step meant to bolster the university's reputation and capabilities for research, now worth $50 million annually, ODU officials say.

David F. Harnage, ODU's vice president of administration and finance, said the market is ripe for offering building sites to private research and development firms interested in tapping into the university's resources to develop new technology in such areas as nuclear physics, aerospace and mechanical engineering, coastal oceanography, and high-performance computing - all strengths at ODU.

The city's redevelopment plan, officials say, would complement the university's expansion and cater to the needs of ODU's students, faculty and staff and to residents living in surrounding neighborhoods. A market study commissioned two years ago by ODU recommended a mix of restaurants, clubs with entertainment, and such ``convenience'' stores as a supermarket, a pharmacy, video rental, book and music stores, and a cleaners.

Under the plan, the city would foot the bill for about $15 million in infrastructure improvements, including the cost of carving out a new ``Main Street'' that would run parallel to Hampton Boulevard and Killam Avenue. Fraim said the cost to finance the improvements would run taxpayers about $1.2 million over 20 years.

ODU, through the state, is providing funds to buy property needed to accommodate the university's expansion. Of the $17 million needed, $13 million is in hand, officials say.

The remainder of the property for the private development, which officials estimate will cost $16 million, will come from sources including nonprofit foundations associated with ODU, bank loans, private developers and possibly federal agencies.

City officials acknowledge that the redevelopment, at least in the first few years, will be a drain on the corridor's tax base. A financial impact statement prepared for the city in 1995 shows a cumulative loss in tax revenue of $2.3 million in 1995 dollars over the first four years of the project as property is demolished and removed from the tax rolls.

But officials say they're banking on the long-term payoff. The same study shows that, beginning in the fifth year, the project will generate more tax revenue than the city could have expected from the existing businesses. Within 20 years, the redeveloped property is expected to more than double the amount of tax revenue that the city would otherwise have received, the study stated.

Some business owners who would be displaced, however, question the soundness of the plan.

John Mercer, a co-owner of Friar Tuck's, an institution with students that's been around for about a quarter century, said the disruption of business in the 10-block project area would have a serious trickle-down effect throughout the region's economy. Every month, for instance, he said his business spends $70,000 buying products from other vendors, and the loss of that flow will hurt those businesses as well.

``Economically, this doesn't make good sense,'' Mercer said. ``The city's going to lose millions of dollars in tax revenue.''

The merchants estimate that the businesses that front Hampton Boulevard employ nearly 200 people - jobs that will be lost, at least temporarily, if the redevelopment proceeds as planned.

``I don't understand how any city can afford to do that,'' Mercer said. ``How can they just wipe that off the tax books?''

While saying they support ODU's expansion, many business owners argue that the city should first provide space for businesses to relocate before ODU begins construction on its convocation center, expected to uproot 14 to 17 businesses.

But with state money already allocated by the General Assembly to build the center, ODU hopes to have the building underway by next year and completed by fall 2000. City officials say they don't have money in hand to begin buying property for the commercial redevelopment.

Some also have questioned why the university is expanding east into a commercial area, which includes such corporate icons as McDonald's, Burger King and 7-Eleven, when it would be cheaper to move south into Lamberts Point, a residential neighborhood still undergoing redevelopment.

City officials, who designated Lamberts Point a conservation area several years ago, said they have drawn a line there that they won't allow the university to cross.

``We have a neighborhood there that's on its way back, and we're spending millions of dollars in there right now,'' Fraim said. ``We wouldn't surrender that neighborhood.''

In an attempt to soften the impact on businesses, ODU earlier this month announced a $500,000 fund available to help pay for relocation expenses. Harnage said his idea is for the money to be used primarily by tenant businesses that have invested money in remodeling rented building space and wouldn't otherwise receive compensation for the improvements. Some business operators have spent more than $100,000 on such improvements.

City officials pledge to be as fair as possible.

``As far as doing no harm,'' Fraim said, ``we need to bend over backwards. Our goal is that, when the smoke clears, everyone of these folks will be relocated and will stay in business.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Artist's rendering]

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