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Norfolk's Waterside has been transformed from a bustling marketplace of shops and restaurants and nightclubs into an urban Rorschach test, with everyone seeing something different in its future.
The center, opened in 1983 on some of the best riverfront land in Norfolk's downtown, has watched its fortunes decline even as the city has boomed all around it.
The second floor - formerly a festival of nightlife - is nearly empty after the city booted bars that had lost control of their crowds. Two vendors remain in what was once a food court where downtown diners could choose from fast and ethnic food counters, much of it remarkably good.
As The Pilot's Harry Minium reported recently, Waterside becomes the city's responsibility on July 1, when it takes control from the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority. That makes Waterside both the city's problem and its opportunity.
The city has huge obligations at Waterside, including more than $700,000 to fix the roof just to make the place habitable. Millions more will be spent on debt service and subsidies.
That sort of looming financial obligation should spur Norfolk to figure out what Waterside should be, or even if it should be at all. Proposals - solicited and un- - have ranged from tearing down Waterside, to renovating it, to selling it to a developer, to transforming the property into a casino.
In the meantime, this mostly vacant mall on the Elizabeth River is doing nothing for Norfolk's economic health or its image. So much of Waterside is empty that it no longer has any gravitational pull, the original intent of the place.
In the middle of a recession, the city's options are somewhat limited, and the last thing Norfolk wants to do is undermine already struggling private enterprise. But Waterside is too valuable a space - with too much potential and in too critical a location - to allow it to languish for lack of a plan.
Waterside was a good and bold idea when it opened almost three decades ago. It'll take another good and bold idea to give the site new life in its next decade.
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The key is a good sound holistic collaborative plng process
I agree totally, however, the key the planning process is not just a plan built by 'developers' and bought but a collaborative planning process that first defines a new refined ViSION for waterside, building on its strengths, new planning principles and realligning the development strategy. Its not just a yes/no keep it trash it process, but one involving the various stakeholders and neighborhoods.
Norfolk does that well, and just need to embrace it. The key is time, Norfolk leaders while recognizing that something needs to be done has to realize it has to be done right and the planning process will help. Building from the successes of new housing downtown, transit oriented development and more walkable city.
I recommend either using UDA planning associates or DPZ out of Coral Cables who did award winning East Beach.
The key is creating a great place not just a budget line item
Access
One of the biggest problems is Waterside was designed at the tail end of the era when everything was built around the car, so there is no way to safely and conveniently walk to Waterside without going through the pay parking lot or paying for valet parking. Even if you could cross the busy 6 lanes of traffic there's not a sidewalk on the far side of the road.
Urban designers across the country have repeatedly solved these problems they earlier created by rethinking barrier roadways to reconnect the inaccessible areas so the general public can use them. Any redesign of Waterside has to start with rethinking Waterside drive and that parking garage.