Norfolk needs this like it needs a ferris wheel. Oh, wait.

They can't be serious. Norfolk city officials, that is.

City Hall simply cannot be chewing on a plan to raze that wart on waterfront known as Waterside only to replace it with a conference center.

Excuse me, another conference center. One that's bigger than the existing center a few blocks away.

What is with city honchos around here and their fixation on convention and conference business? Surely they've heard that the country is saturated with meeting facilities. Hampton Roads already has competing centers in a number of cities. Yet myopic municipal planners at the Beach - and now Norfolk - are stuck on the idea that more meeting space means more visitors.

Millions of them.

The Resort City's recent flirtation with a convention center hotel almost cost taxpayers about $67 million. Norfolk, with a much smaller population than the Beach, would have to cough up $92 million in public money for a $200 million project that would include two hotels, parking, office space, a marina and a "destination" seafood restaurant.

Proponents say this project can be built without a tax increase. Big deal. It's still a massive public investment.

So far, Norfolk has about $15 million squirreled away in a special build-a-bigger-conference-center account that's been funded in part with the city's restaurant-crippling meals tax.

I hesitate to point this out, but Norfolk schools are troubled. If there are millions marinating in a bank account, why doesn't someone have the good sense to suggest that the money be diverted to education? Unlike conference centers and Ferris wheels - yes, the proposed complex apparently has one, according to an artist's rendering - good schools are a proven economic development tool.

Back to Waterside. This vintage 1983 festival marketplace, which turned festering mess years ago, sits on a primo piece of riverfront real estate. Developers ought to be arm-wrestling one another for a chance to get their paws on that property. Public funds? None should be needed. Not here. If there's one thing in short supply, it's land with water views.

According to a story in Tuesday's Pilot, Norfolk has five proposals for the property. The City Council will discuss them in secret and then - once the politicians have picked a winner - make them public. That's the spirit of Norfolk. Why let the taxpayers weigh in?

Then again, when the highest and best use of waterfront property is a Hooters, as is the case now at Waterside, any new development would be an improvement. Yet wouldn't it be refreshing to find out that a developer has a plan to risk only private money on a proposal to do something fresh on this valuable chunk of land?

Here's a plea for the chosen few who will be doing the choosing: Surprise us.

Don't fall for a proposal that follows the uninspired new urbanism of Town Center, Short Pump or Branson, Mo. Resist the urge to plop a Hard Rock Cafe, Funny Bone Comedy Club or an ESPN Zone sports bar on the riverfront. Oh, and the world doesn't need another Planet Hollywood, Cheesecake Factory or a Morton's.

Honest.

Then again. It could be worse.

Last April, former City Councilman Randy Wright was on Tony Macrini's morning talk radio show touting the idea of a "Great Wolf Lodge" for the property. This visionary insisted that Norfolk was not too close to the one in Williamsburg to be successful.

Yep, an indoor water park. On the waterfront.

Compared to that, a conference center/hotel/office/parking lot/Ferris wheel isn't such a bad idea.

Minus the public money, that is.

Kerry Dougherty, 757-446-2306, kerry.dougherty@cox.net, PilotOnline.com/dougherty