Showdown looms over proposed Beach club 'Eden'

VIRGINIA BEACH

The pun is irresistible: It's anything but paradise at the Oceanfront as word spreads about a proposed restaurant and concert hall called "Eden."

Neighbors are worried about late-night noise, excessive drinking and parking problems. Opposition petitions are popping up everywhere, including behind the counter of a nearby 7-Eleven.

Some Oceanfront developers with close ties to the city are at odds over the club, setting up a showdown before the City Council. Tangled up in the battle are conflicting visions for the Oceanfront.

Club backers want to transform a vacant post office on 32nd Street into a restaurant and venue for touring bands, a kind of cross between The Nor Va in downtown Norfolk and the Jewish Mother, which until a recent relocation to Norfolk was a longtime Oceanfront institution.

Developers Bruce Thompson and Gordon Huey, who are starting a $72 million transformation of a nearby city block, say Eden would hurt their project. Their six-story development, Beach Center, is the centerpiece of the city's $30 million makeover of the northern entrance to the resort area, known as the Laskin Road Gateway.

Thompson and Huey said Eden would create parking problems and scare away upscale retailers and potential tenants of their 178-unit apartment complex. Rent would be between $900 and $1,900 a month, Huey said.

"It really is disastrous for our plans," he said.

Michael Barrett, CEO of Runnymede Corp., the company that owns the building that would become Eden, called the developers' arguments "bizarre" and "frankly beyond comprehension." He said Thompson and Huey want similar businesses in their own development.

Thompson said that isn't true. He said Beach Center will have restaurants and bars, but they will close at midnight, won't be bigger than 3,000 square feet and won't have live music outside of a solo performer, such as a pianist.

Eden would be 8,300 square feet and stay open until 2 a.m.

The debate could present a quandary for the City Council.

Thompson, with city support, built the 31st Street Hilton hotel and the adjoining 530-space public parking garage. This year he was named King Neptune, an honor annually bestowed on a Beach businessman. Huey is the retired executive vice president of Towne Insurance Agency, an affiliate of TowneBank, where he was a board member.

Barrett's Runnymede built, among other things, the office complex that includes the Beach's TowneBank headquarters where Mayor Will Sessoms, president of TowneBank Virginia Beach, works. The city leases office space there. Barrett chairs Virginia Beach Vision, a city business group, and is a vocal defender of the city's development strategies, including light rail.

"It's going to be a tough decision, and it's going to come down to how the City Council feels about it," said Deputy City Manager Steve Herbert.

City planners recommended approval, although the planning commission deadlocked on Eden 5-5.

The City Council will try to settle the dispute at its Dec. 7 meeting when the man who would own and operate the club asks for his permit.

Beach resident Clay McNutt is looking to open his first restaurant and live music hall. McNutt, 47, is vice president of Atlantic Ordnance International, a defense contractor, and the former vice president of Norfolk Shiprepair & Drydock Co., which his family sold in 2007.

Plans show the building divided into a concert hall, a restaurant and an outdoor dining terrace off the post office's old loading dock.

McNutt said the idea is to have live music three or four nights a week. The focus would be a wide range of rock 'n' roll and indie acts.

McNutt said Marco Hyder, a tattoo artist, will book the bands, and that he already has bar and kitchen managers lined up. He said the inside will have a sparse "industrial" feel, with concrete floors, black walls and LED lights that change colors.

Residents of tree-lined neighborhoods near the site say Eden would be too close and too big.

"It's an in-your-face encroachment into a residential area," said Kitty Bosher, who owns Jefferson Apartments across the street.

"This is not a small, intimate club," said Frank Craddock, who lives and owns property on 34th Street. "This could be as big as Peabody's," a dance club on 21st Street with capacity for 628 people, according to the fire department. The Jewish Mother, which closed its Pacific Avenue location to make room for Beach Center and reopened on Granby Street in downtown Norfolk, was rated for up to 315. Eden would max out around 550, according to city planners.

Thompson and Huey said Eden could thwart the upscale feel they hope Beach Center creates.

Desirable tenants such as Restoration Hardware, an Apple store and Pottery Barn might look elsewhere while souvenir and taffy shops move in, Huey said. He said the young professionals and well-to-do empty nesters they're courting as tenants would not want to live next to a night club.

"We've fought the image of a hamburger town loaded with beer joints long enough," Huey said. "This is our opportunity to change the image of Virginia Beach."

McNutt said his project will embrace the Beach's gritty heritage and offer an alternative to retail and restaurant chains.

"We're not the French Riviera," he said. "We are an economic alternative to some of the more upscale beach areas in the United States."

Aaron Applegate, (757) 222-5122. aaron.applegate@pilotonline.com