Momentum in Wards Corner

The city's purchase of deteriorating apartments in Denby Park should fuel the revitalization of Wards Corner, which has waited too long for such progress.

It's been nearly a decade since the city promised to spur a renaissance in the area, which once cradled some of Norfolk's best restaurants and retailers. Wards Corner rivaled downtown and even gave rise to a hopeful moniker: "the Times Square of the South."

As crime moved in, businesses moved out. Any resemblance to Times Square changed from a glittering, appealing image of prosperity to a seedy, fallow one.

The city has struggled for years with how to proceed and was slowed again in 2007 when a change in eminent domain law made it harder for governments to take private property.

Meanwhile, the area continued to decline; many storefronts in Wards Corner are vacant, and some of its shopping centers need renovation. Crime in Denby Park, a neighborhood just to the east, grew so dangerous that residents asked the city to move a playground because it had become a draw for drug deals and other crimes.

That's all despite the fact that the major intersection at Granby Street and Little Creek Road is one of the busiest in the city. It connects Ocean View with downtown and Norfolk Naval Station with the Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek. More than 100,000 people live within three miles of Wards Corner, and more than 10 percent of them have household incomes of more than $100,000 per year.

Some small changes have already helped: Flowers adorn the median on Granby Street and an attractive railing prevents jaywalkers from weaving between cars to cross the busy intersection. Residents have banded together to maintain planters on all four corners - on one morning a woman opened the trunk of her car to reveal dozens of water-filled jugs as she stooped to tend to the containers. City programs have offered help to rehabilitate older homes.

A Walmart that opened a short distance from Wards Corner in Southern Shopping Center drove retail sales and brought other development with it. That development could have been at Wards Corner, but the retailer couldn't find a suitable site.

The store's success is evidence that Wards Corner is ripe for investment. It could once again offer high-end retailers and fine dining. It could be a destination for people who live in those surrounding neighborhoods to walk to and a place to spend their money.

The city found a way to accomplish what it intended for Denby Park, even without eminent domain powers: It negotiated with property owners to buy derelict apartments so it could tear them down.

Wards Corner residents hailed the move as the beginning of change. That's what it is: a beginning. If tearing down the Denby apartments helps reduce crime, that also removes one more obstacle to investment.

Residents should keep up the pressure on current property owners to improve their buildings, especially in the neighborhood's commercial core. So should city officials.

Wards Corner's future depends on using the momentum created by the purchase of Denby Park to accelerate improvement. Don't coast now and squander that opportunity.