Virginia Beach unveils vision for reshaping the Oceanfront

Visit other parts of the country and you will see the limitations of our local design community. In Dallas for instance, routinely there are u-turn lanes underneath bridge overpasseses which allow drivers to make a u-turn without waiting at the traffic light. Here we haven't caught on yet, spending millions of dollars on overpasses (Military Hwy & Va. Beach Blvd.) that result in more complication and little, if any, improvement. Need more proof? Use Google Earth to take one look at the 64 / 264 interchange, or pull up 264 as it winds over downtown Norfolk. What an absolute mess the locals, spending our tax dollars, have left us in!

"What a slap in the face of the local design community whenever these localities go out of town for architectural or urban planning!"

Actually, they've chosen local architecture firms most of the time, which is why all the buildings in this area look so bland. If the local design community wants to stay in the game, then they need to step it up a notch. Most of the stuff that comes out locally is boring, uninspiring, and cookie-cutter. No where close to anything you'd normally see in a city our size. Though I will say this, CMSS has definitely stepped it up with their last few projects. I don't think they would have done so however without the prospect of competition from outside this area.

"I'm thinking it looks pretty good," said Mike Eason, the city's resort administrator. On paper.

Yeah, well so did communism."

Yes, and now we trade w/ a communist country which is hosting the Olympics. We are so scared of them we allow their military to grow, hack our computers, and adjust their currency so that we cannot compete. I would have to say the fat lady has not sung on that one yet.

"I'm thinking it looks pretty good," said Mike Eason, the city's resort administrator. On paper.

Yeah, well so did communism.

What a slap in the face of the local design community whenever these localities go out of town for architectural or urban planning! They have some deep seeded need to spend huge money out of our region to get outsiders viewpoints of what our region should be. No one knows Hampton Roads better than our own local design community. We will look like every other community around the country or worse yet, we will look like what THEY THINK we should look like, not what we want to look like. Just look at that eyesore Convention Center that SOM of Chicago saddled us with and no hotel design to go with it! Compare that with the Town Center - locally designed and planned and accomplished! There are other locally designed structures that are as good or even better! WE NEED TO SUPPORT LOCAL TALENT!

Open source in use locally? I know for a fact NASA Langley, Jefferson Labs, SAIC, Lockheed Martin, various NAVY commands (including red team), Xtuple, Concursive, Wasabi Systems, Virginia Pilot, Atrius Technologies, Pearle Vision, NCIS, Honeywell, Coastal, and others. Heck there was an article a few days ago about the son of the founder of Landmark making over $2.5 billion off of RedHat. Not too shabby. I just find that Microsoft only people don't know how things work on the low level, and therefore the troubleshooting skills aren't very good. But the way to get good jobs is to work for a company outside of Hampton Roads that lets you telecommute.

I've lived in your area twice before during the late 70's and again in the mid 90's between job hopping that took me to many parts of the country. I've been in good places and bad, and I once thought VB/HR was easily one of the better places. I used to think I would like to retire there someday... but no longer. Your civic leaders seem to be intent on shoving piles of public money into the pockets of small cadre of corporate developers who have them convinced that commercial development focused on the upper-middle and upper classes is a wise use of public money. It looks good for a few years, but then the glitter wears off and the taxpayers are stuck with the bill when the corporate interests move on to the newest tax giveaway. This is the way the corporate world works today. The public is nothing to them but a source of endless revenue--only now more of it comes in through the back door than the front.

Wake up VB. There is no genie in the lantern. Take back control of your community now before Corporate America owns every square inch (except streets and sidewalks of course--those are left for you to maintain) and all you residents will need a PSL just to put a towel on t

Virginia Beach might be lower in crime then any city its size, but it also has less fortune 500 companies based in it then most cities half its size as well. Trade offs trade offs. I dont know, I think Id take a little higher crime in order to be able to afford adequate housing and neccesseties. Besides, with most major cities, they contain fairly safe suburbs, no matter how dangerous the actual city is (four great examples of this are Indianapolis, St. Louis, Atlanta and Miami). This isnt so with Virginia Beach.

The money would be better spent trying to improve the weather in Virginia Beach so it would be hot all year round. Now that I've said that, watch those geniuses in city council embrace the idea!

None of the slides show where the illegal aliens who are going to be hired by the developers to build all of this will be living. Now, we know they'll be displacing American construction workers, and living 5 families along with anchor babies to an apartment in order to undercut wages, so I'm guessing the citizens of Virginia Beach will be seeing them in all of the apartment complexes set back from the strip and you can guarantee since this is a sanctuary city ala our fine mayor, that they will also be stacking them in the off-season houses set back from the strip as well. Hey, it's already happening. But what are you gonna do? Mayor Oberndorf and the council are more committed to keeping developers happy then they are to serving the long term needs of the average citizen. Wait until you see the lines at the local emergency rooms that illegals use as free clinics, and you'll love FORCED bilingual schools under pressure from the ACLU. No worry for the corrupt city leaders. They'll all be able to retire to their safe gated communities after the invasion.

you know those train tracks that aren't being used that run along virginia beach boulevard and interstate 264..... light rail corridor.

Some great salesperson sold Virginia Beach a monorail! (for you Simpson's fans)

This plan should have been created years ago. If it had we would have a convention center very close to the beach and boardwalk and indoor athletic facility. Ok if people are stuck on light rail it needs to be elevated - surface real estate is to important to be wasted on tracks. Should have an elevated monorail system that runs from North part of Laskin Road at Hill Top through the Beach district (Baltic or Pacific) linked with a people mover from the Pavilion on to at least the Marine Science Museum but really should go to the Water Park / Motor World.

The drawing were really poor reflection of what it could be...

Didn't we just buy a bunch of new buses with that....um...uh...design on the side to run up and down the beach?

This light rail would run north-south, not east-west. Logically it makes sense, why would VB what to shuttle tourist away from the strip to spend their dollars in other cities?

Light rail? Really? Va. Beach is proposing light rail at the oceanfront? Wow! The same Va. Beach who has opposed Norfolk's effort to introduce light rail every step of the way? Hmmm, very suspicious....

Sorry, you're going to have to make a choice. To make the big bucks you're going to have to sell your soul to Microsoft. It doesn't matter whether a single Linux/BSD box can do what a cluster of NT boxes can. Follow the money. If a company can afford a farm of inefficient boxes staffed by overpaid point-and-click types, then yes, you need to work there too. Depressing, huh?

The renderings have no character.

Don’t get me wrong I am a rebel through and through, I hate big business just as much as the next punk rocker. BUT I also like feeding my family and having a nice house and being able to afford gas without complaining on every message board about gas prices. It's all about manipulating the system and the system is not open source code OSs, Firefox or Apple. When that does become the system I have no problem jumping ship. My point was the people not willing to "play the game" are the ones that are unemployed or working at 7/11. I am just curious as to size of the company that allows open source code. I know any public or large private company I have worked with (consulting) would never let open source in their security grid.

For those people who tell me I have no right to complain about my property tax doubling because my property values have gone up, please remember, my property value going up ONLY MATTERS when, and IF, I sell. Until then, the only thing I see is a higher property tax bill. And guess what - the "property value" bubble seems to be bursting, given all of the "for sale" signs I see with the "prices reduced" sign right below it.

Va. Beach has mild weather, a low crime rate, and a beach. When the city spent $100 million dollars to redo the oceanfront a few years ago, people from the Northeast who came here on vacation began moving here. This drives up the value of homes. This movement will continue as the baby boomers retire. Va. Beach is going to continue to grow.

Actually, no. Real estate has appreciated because of a speculative mania, driven by loose lending to people who often aren't capable of paying back the loans. It was a giant gold rush, of insane proportions. Now the gov't is trying to keep the banks afloat, that made these really bad loans for no other reason than greed (the people making the loans earn points (money), managers get bonuses, execs get bonuses). Now the gov't is printing tons of money and giving it to the banks so our major lending institutions don't default, which has the effect of a loss of confidence in the US Dollar, and decrease in it's worth. This results in the prices of goods like food and oil going up.

The question will be, how quick will Virginia Beach cut those tax rates when the values of homes decline 40-50%. Remember, it takes around $100K yearly salary for a household to properly afford a home in Hampton Roads now, but the median household income in Virginia Beach is $60K, and all other cities are quite a bit lower. This shows an imbalance that will correct, especially as foreclosures go through the roof and loans are not available.

Skoops - yes, but OpenBSD has some features in it (one particularly) that allow it to take the place of very high end equipment. A good friend's implementation of 16 systems running it took the place of $800,000 in equipment (the company was willing to spend the money). That's legitimate savings. There is just a big difference between someone who is limited to reciting sales information from their Microsoft how-to-sell seminars, versus those that have a good grasp of a multitude of solutions (both commercial and open source). I love saving my company money.

It has just occurred to me - aside from the convention center, the city of VB is proposing the development of hotels, tourist attractions, and other infrastructure that will draw additional tourists here roughly 3 to 4 months out of the year. Sure, the convention center MIGHT draw a number of additional tourists during the off-season, but what about all of the other items the city planners are proposing? I highly doubt that these other things will make much of a difference in drawing additional people here from October to early April. I would really like to see the business case that supports a reasonable return on investment for all of this development..... Of course, I would want to see this business case from someone I could trust. This is one of the reasons why I think this development will NEVER happen without significant (monetary) support fromt the city - a developer isn't going to risk their own dollars without a good business case.

I just hope this doesn't turn into a college spring break destination. I don't want 'Girls Gone Wild' at the Oceanfront. If the Town Center is any indication of the potential of our City Council to attract and coordinate with a developer, then they have my support.

As for the 31st street project - I would have loved a park, but our city has many already that aren't being used! (Seashore, Trashmore, and multiple city playgrounds.) Okay, these are prime real estate overlooking the ocean, but get real.

I must say, I'm shocked at some of the comments. I recently bought a small condo which is not very close to the beach or the bay, but it does have a VB address. Lots of people on this website are complaining about their taxes going up! Looking back on the sale history of my property, the value has DOUBLED over the last 4 years! Of course taxes go up, it's based on the value, right?

Has the rate per thousand changed?

Would you be complaining if the value of your home hadn't gone up?

Don't you think your real estate has appreciated because this is a phenomenal place to live?!

We have significantly lower crime in Virginia Beach than other major cities in the country and we're ranked 34 in size. Also, when it comes to private investors, understand that we need to attract them, or our city will not continue to evolve at a pace that will bring in the tourists. Then we really would be on the hook for city projects!

Someone asked why no casino's? Lets face it, the pols in charge and those waiting in the wings to take over from "Myer Lansky" and her gang, know fully well, that more federal and state scrutiny would follow. Actually the plan looks pretty decent on paper. I'd like to see the new city council show accountability and let the developers put the money up front. Also, why is that, when a project like this does begins to happen, there seems to be a handfull of "new construction" companies started. Shell companies for the kickbacks? No...I'm sure that never happens in VB..especially in the last 15-20 years or so! Before I close my eyes, I would love to see an investigation of how this city, this jewel of the east coast, was raped, pillaged and its tax payers duped into paying more than was needed.

35 years ago when I bought my home (in VB) we actually (monthly?) had our curbline swept/vacuumed by a city vehicle. The only vacuum being operated by VB now is the one being applied to my wallet....

You have to start with a vision and that is exactly what the article was trying to get across. I believe the article stated that the proposed changes are 15-20 years out. Complaints are rampant about how Myrtle Beach is so much better yet when improvements/changes are suggested the complaints are even louder and extremely negative. I hope I'm blessed to be around for some of the changes. I enjoy the oceanfront and I'm there every chance I get.

In addition, I have no idea what this is. So I looked it up and to educate myself on your ramblings. Just another open source OS. Maybe the fact that people know what this is is why they are unemployed. The chances that you find a high paying job with this skill set are not likely. This is not what the public or private sector are looking for. It is a hobby, a past-time. Currently, it serves no purpose in the real world; it is basically a video game. Last time I checked you can’t make 6 figures playing video games.