Downtown floats above downturn

In boom times, few demanded to see a return on Norfolk's investment downtown, aside from all the new towers, condos, restaurants and stores where slums once stood. The physical transformation itself was enough.

Now, though, with the economy sputtering, gas prices surging and cities everywhere anxiously watching the real estate market, shiny new buildings aren't enough. Suffering taxpayers want value for their money.

Which is precisely what Norfolk has gotten from its downtown push.

After decades of municipal investment south of Brambleton Avenue, while much of the nation is retrenching, the boom times in Norfolk continue, with hundreds of millions more in private development coming.

"All over the country, projects are being shut down," Mayor Paul Fraim said. "We are bucking the trend."

MacArthur Center may be the biggest recent example, but Norfolk's municipal spending downtown stretches from Scope to Waterside, Nauticus to Harbor Park, Town Point Park to the cruise ship terminal.

Now light rail, a $232 million endeavor, will tie it all together. Rising with The Tide are a series of new downtown development projects, including the $171 million Wachovia Center, a complex of offices and apartments and shopping, and almost $70 million in new buildings along Brambleton.

The city has skin and money in all those projects, as it had in MacArthur Center ($100 million). And as it will at the Wachovia Center, where it will contribute $5.4 million for utilities and improvements, land valued at $3.6 million and $53.4 million to build parking garages; as it will at the 300-room, $200 million Westin Hotel, which will be connected to the city's new $50 million convention center.

According to a story by Harry Minium over the weekend in The Pilot, research by Chmura Economics and Analytics found that for the past decade, downtown generated an annual average of $18.5 million in taxes more than the city was spending. Employment increased from 16,916 jobs in 1996 to 24,933 jobs in 2005.

Those numbers alone don't provide a justification for spending taxpayer dollars. Neither do attempts at social engineering, or largesse to corporations threatening flight. Put it all together, though, and the city builds the kind of forward momentum that enables it to shrug off a mild economic downturn. At least so far.

The city's effort hasn't been flawless. Some investments haven't turned out, or haven't turned out immediately. Nobody seems to know whether a $22 million boost to Granby Towers (still ungiven) will be enough to make that project viable. There is considerable discomfort about the scope of the new courthouse, as there is with the size of the check the city will provide for a $66 million medical building across from Norfolk General Hospital.

Those are relatively minor quibbles for a city of Norfolk's size. On balance, the city's consistent and huge investment has been rewarded with jobs, tax revenue, private investment and residents. And with a downtown that has recovered the luster it lost long ago.