Meet the woman who helped create Va. Beach Town Center

VIRGINIA BEACH

When Pearl Smith became national president of the Navy Wives Clubs of America in the late '60s, she did what no one before her had dared: Smith asked for a meeting with the U.S. secretary of the Navy and top admirals.

"I thought the Pentagon should know who we are and what we do," Smith recalled. "I just thought it should be done, so let's do it."

She got the meeting.

Fast-forward to 1988, when real estate executive Gerald Divaris recruited Smith to become executive director of the fledgling Central Business District Association of Virginia Beach. The goal: to gather momentum to build a thriving business center in the middle of the city.

They called it Town Center.

That happened, too, despite early skepticism.

"I went to every meeting I could think of," Smith said, from Rotary to church groups. "When some people said, 'Pearl, that's a joke; it's never going to happen,' I said, 'Yes it is; we're going to do this.' "

Town Center isn't quite finished, but Friday was her last day with the association.

Smith stepped down - it's not a retirement, she said, since she hopes to work again - because "my personal mission here has been accomplished. The organization is well established and has met its primary goal of creating a dynamic city center."

In a letter nominating Smith for Virginia Beach First Citizen of the Year, Phil Kellam, the city's commissioner of the revenue, called her "the mother of urban Virginia Beach."

Smith didn't create Town Center alone. It also needed the backing of politicians and the muscle of developers such as Armada Hoffler and Divaris Real Estate.

"But you've got to have someone to rally the troops," said Barbara Lewis, president of Town Center City Club. "Mr. Divaris had the dream and the vision. She did the legwork and the political organization."

She also masterminded the Women's Review luncheon series, somehow luring big-name speakers with no fees. Smith has served as a role model for businesswomen and a sounding board for would-be candidates sniffing the political waters.

She blends a sharp wit, self-deprecating charm, unchecked candor and towering standards, all delivered in a staccato New York accent.

"I always knew where Pearl stood, from Day One," said Mayor Will Sessoms, who remembered her chiding him when he couldn't attend her lunches. "She made it clear what needed to be done, and I better do it."

Smith, who declined to give her age, was born in Manhattan. Her father, a native of Lynchburg, was a police officer, and her mother a homemaker.

She studied home economics at the University of Miami. "That was a joke," Smith said. "I don't even cook."

She dropped out at 22 to marry a Navy officer, whom she later divorced, and raised four boys. The family moved to Norfolk in 1966 and then to the Beach in the early '80s.

Smith's first job after the Navy Wives Club was as manager of campaign headquarters for G. William White-hurst's successful first run for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1968.

"She was very effective," Whitehurst said, "and a lot of fun to have around. She's just a very spunky person, with strong opinions."

Her jobs after that included local director of the U.S. Census; director of special events and, then, public relations, for the Rices Nachmans department store chain in Norfolk; and director of community and public affairs for the Christian Broadcasting Network.

That position was eliminated in 1988 among hundreds of layoffs at CBN, which lost revenue when Pat Robertson went off the air to run for president.

Her next stop was the Central Business District Association.

Twenty-three years later, Gerald Divaris thinks it was a wise hire.

"Pearl was a catalyst for moving the process forward," he said, "and developing an organization that helped not only to keep alive the dream that we've all had, but also to enable us to have a platform for networking with the business community."

Buoyed by monthly lunches and thrice-a-year women's talks, the association has 165 members, Smith said, including churches, small businesses and law firms. Dues range from $300 to $1,000 a year.

Smith, who did not disclose her salary, wouldn't daintily defer to the movers and shakers who led the board.

"The president has some leadership role, but with a lot of it Pearl already decided what needed to be done," said Glen Huff, founder of Huff, Poole & Mahoney and former president of the association's board. "She told the president and prepared the agenda for the board. She really set the tone."

Nor did she beat around the bush with businesspeople. Lewis recalled Smith being introduced as a "lovely woman" to a chef at a hotel hosting one of her lunches. Smith chimed in: "I'm a lovely woman after you do everything right. But I can be a real bitch if it isn't."

Her toughness yielded sure results. "I find that few people do what they say they're going to do," Lewis said. "If she says she'll do something, you know it'll get done."

Smith spent all 23 years in a small office on the sixth floor of One Columbus Center. At first, she saw only trees outside. At the end, she had more company.

The area bounded by Virginia Beach and Independence boulevards, Columbus Street and Constitution Avenue had 229 businesses as of Sept. 1, said Kellam, the commissioner of the revenue.

Under "tax increment financing," real-estate taxes from Town Center are used to offset the public costs of the project.

In fiscal 2010, which ended in June, Virginia Beach collected $6.3 million in real-estate taxes and some hotel-tax revenues, said Patricia Phillips, the city's finance director. That covered the year's debt service on the project and other costs, leaving a $700,000 surplus, she said. In 2011, with falling real estate values, Phillips expects a $400,000 surplus.

In addition, Town Center generates nearly $6 million a year in business taxes for Virginia Beach, said Marc Davis, a city spokesman.

Divaris listed Town Center's occupancy rates as 97 percent for office space, 92 percent for retail and 91 percent for residential.

The fourth phase, to include an office tower and hotel, has been stalled by troubles acquiring financing, Divaris said. But "in recent months, that has started to loosen up." He predicted that construction would begin by year's end.

It hit Smith while watching the holiday illumination at Town Center last November what she'd helped create. She started to cry.

"I thought, 'This is what we were dreaming about and working for all these years. This is unbelievable.' "

Smith's Women's Review lunches, which yield at least $9,000 each for the association, have been headlined by such celebrities as novelist Linda Fairstein and NBC correspondent Hoda Kotb.

Sister Helen Prejean, author of "Dead Man Walking," was "a hoot," with a surprisingly saucy tongue, Smith said. Actress Janet Leigh "was delightful and sent me a beautiful thank you letter." But another actress, Ellen Burstyn, was "a little bit uppity and didn't relate too well to us," she said.

On Wednesday, at the last luncheon led by Smith, the guest speaker was Kate White, the editor in chief of Cosmopolitan and a novelist. About 245 people attended.

At 11:15, 45 minutes before the official start, Smith had spoken with the staff at the Holiday Inn Virginia Beach/Norfolk Hotel and Conference Center to change a few things.

The table setup was rearranged, so some seated eight, not 10. A table in the hallway for a lunch sponsor was moved closer to the ballroom entrance. The floor-length mike was switched for one attached to the podium.

"I'm a perfectionist with these lunches," she said. And a stickler for keeping to schedule.

The first glitch in her timetable: WTKR-TV anchor Barbara Ciara, while introducing White, called for a standing ovation for Smith. Dressed in animal-print jacket and matching shoes, Smith quickly signaled the audience to sit.

White's talk included a few tips ("Go big or go home," "Ignore the phrase 'That's the way we've always done it here'") and revealed an upcoming Cosmo headline: "For His Thighs Only."

Exactly an hour after Smith had launched the proceedings, she returned to the podium to end them.

But the event went long, no fault of hers.

A few women unexpectedly got up to praise Smith and offer her gifts. And then came another standing ovation.

Philip Walzer, (757) 222-3864, phil.walzer@pilotonline.com