Beach offers peek at Oceanfront plan. But how to get there?

VIRGINIA BEACH

The ocean is a great draw.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

To offer more than the Atlantic, Virginia Beach should remake its Oceanfront with destination districts, pedestrian corridors and an influx of year-round residents, a consultant said in a resort-area master plan released last week.

"People come to the area for the beach," said Lynn Hoffman Carlton, project manager with Sasaki Associates Inc., the Massachusetts firm that drew up the Oceanfront proposal. "But they're looking for variety in their experience."

The master plan - a few months from completion - is a map to get there, but it's not a straight line.

To spur investment, the city likely would have to pay millions in public improvements, which could stir civic leagues from Kempsville to Croatan.

A management entity may have to be created to assemble land - without the use of condemnation - and oversee parking. New zoning and tax rules may have to be put in place.

Then there's the question of how the resort fits in with the rest of Virginia Beach's development. Or the overall city master plan. And the budget.

"The vision plan is nice," said Councilman Bob Dyer, who has been pushing for months to form what he calls a strategic plan for the city. "But I'm going to have to see a business plan tied to this."

What happens over the next few years will decide whether the plan goes from paper to concrete, or if it joins a shelf full of academic reports on how best to reshape the Oceanfront.

"In three years, something has to hit the ground or people will lose faith that this plan means anything," said Mark Dawson, a principal in Sasaki. "Something has to come out of that. Pretty soon, we need to become pretty specific."

City Manager Jim Spore said the development of the old Dome site or of a headquarters hotel for the Virginia Beach Convention Center could be those "catalyst projects." The city is talking to developers for both projects, but no decisions are expected this year.

Spore said it can be tough to persuade some residents to spend city money on private projects, especially when new taxing districts and public authorities are involved.

But he points to Town Center and the 31st Street Hilton complex - where the city has invested roughly $100 million in public infrastructure - as evidence the partnerships work.

"Hopefully, they're smart enough to figure that out," Spore said. "If you can get a $1 billion investment for a $100 million stimulus, that needs to be laid out."

Stephen White, the city's planning coordinator, said details of the plan will come through zoning rules and public policy actions. The $300,000 Sasaki plan was meant to be a visual tool, he said.

City officials can market the plan, and later its details, to developers, added Jack Whitney, the Beach's planning director. Whitney said the timing is good because city planners are updating the overall Virginia Beach master plan to present to the City Council next year.

"You capitalize on the excitement and the momentum," he said. "Build stronger relationships between the plan and the implementation pieces, the infrastructure, the economic development."

The Resort Advisory Commission thinks one person should do nothing but build those relationships. The Oceanfront panel has asked the council to appoint one planner to shepherd the plan through the bureaucratic process.

Ken Taylor, commission chair, said if the person is named quickly, that person could work with Sasaki to refine the master plan's final details before it is presented to the City Council later this year.

"It's an attempt to get someone focusing just on the implementation of this," said Mike Eason, the city's resort administrator. "So it keeps it on track. They don't want this gathering dust on a shelf."

Another hurdle is getting residents to believe in the plan.

Councilman John Uhrin said the city has invited the public to a series of planning sessions and allowed as much citizen input as possible.

"It will actually be a community plan," Uhrin said.

Tell that to Martin Waranch, a North End resident whose lone issue with the plan, he said, is that it affects him.

Waranch is concerned that the plan to turn Laskin Road into a pedestrian corridor will cause traffic problems for North End residents.

"The tourists are here from late May to the middle of September and they're gone," he said. "I've got to face this 24/7 for the rest of my life."

And while Waranch said his concern could be resolved with turn lanes from Laskin onto Pacific Avenue, other resident complaints will probably complicate the plan.

Whitney called that "healthy discussion." He said the way to assuage residents is to show them how the redevelopment concept benefits the city.

"There will be multiple opportunities for all of the details to undergo continuing, ongoing scrutiny and refinement," he said, later adding, "It gets easier to convince them if you have a vision and a plan."

Richard Quinn, (757) 222-5119, richard.quinn@pilotonline.com