The Virginian-Pilot
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SUFFOLK
The city has rejected all of the proposals it received for the Obici mansion, calling into question the fate of the historic home.
The city released a statement Friday evening saying that all of the proposals failed to meet one or more of the requirements for the project. Those criteria included financing capability, benefits to the city, and project experience.
Susan Blair, president of Citizens for the Preservation of Obici House, said she was surprised to receive a fax from the city at 5:20 p.m. telling her that her group's proposal was rejected. The note did not say how their plan failed to meet the city's criteria.
"We felt like we had a great proposal," Blair said. "I have no idea, because we covered everything."
The city has not said how many proposals it received. Friday's announcement said the city "will continue to evaluate options as it applies to this location."
Debbie George, a city spokeswoman, said by e-mail: "No additional comment on the process will be provided."
The City Council solicited formal proposals from groups that wanted to repair and renovate the home.
The mansion, on Sleepy Hole Golf Course, belonged to Planters Peanuts founder Amedeo Obici and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Proposals were due Oct. 22.
Blair's group hoped to save Obici's deteriorating home from demolition. Its proposal included plans for a fine-dining
restaurant, a room for wine tasting, and space for special events.
"We're pretty confident that we could get financing," Blair said.
The city required that any new use for the house be compatible with the golf course.
The course operator, Ronnie Rountree, plans to build a clubhouse, restaurant and pavilion for special events.
Dave Forster, (757) 222-5563, dave.forster@pilotonline.com
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DoGooders and Dreamers
These people appear to be naive and totally inexperienced and under the influence of a former city manager. Without any financial backing, this is a joke and is going nowhere other than to just attack the city for not giving away a valuable asset to people with no track record or following. The city should save this building by appointing people of experience to handle this rather than some group that propses to spend 2,000,000 "tax benefits" to create an insignificant grill or diner at a golf course serving primarily golfers and a "gift shop" with no backers or product. The future of this building needs inexperienced leaders and not malcontents or ineffectual people using sarcasm to push their totally inadequate concoctions.
Have It Rountree Way!
I wonder how many Suffolk councilmembers Ronnie Rountree has influenced. This was no more then an exercise to say, "Your bids don't qualify!" So Rountree could win.
Rountree now will get the "Go Ahead" to build whatever structure he wants.
This is another example of "Back Door Politics" practiced by the City of Suffolk.
"It's NOT a good time to be in Suffolk!"
Pre-determined
The way Suffolk has been managing development lately, they seem to want to look just like Va Beach (gag, cough, sputter). They went through this exercise to appease the people who want to preserve what little charm and architechtural interest there is left in Suffolk, and then will decide to simply tear it down and put up a developer funded glass and steel building that looks like all the others. Oh well.
Nice.
You hit the nail on the head.