Focus On: Virginia Beach, Virginia
New Town Center Draws Heavy Retail Response
After nearly 20 years of planning meetings, Virginia Beach, Virginia
is moving ahead with a mixed-use central business district that could bring as many as
3,800 new jobs to the town while bringing city coffers some $9 million in sales, personal
property and meal taxes over the next 10 years.
The Town Center of Virginia Beach was approved by the City Council of Virginia Beach, and
groundbreaking is scheduled for June. CMSS Architects acted as designer and planner for
the project, and the city is working closely with Armada/Hoffler and Divaris Real Estate
in efforts to obtain tax increment financing and zoning approvals. Under the deal,
Armada/Hoffler and Divaris, represented through an investment partnership named TownCenter
Associates LLC, will manage and lease the project. The city anticipates acquiring the land
needed for the project, requiring an assemblage of parcels from four different property
owners. Armada/Hoffler is expected to purchase the land from the city by September 2006.
The mixed-use development met with such an overwhelming response from retailers that the
developers are modifying the original plans. According to Gerald Divaris, president of
Divaris Real Estate, the project is in a state of transition. The developers are
“figuring what to build and at what pace it should be done.” Because of the
tremendous interest in the retail space available, council members also said that Phases I
and IA, covering three city blocks and originally scheduled to be completed at different
times, will be built in tandem. This portion of the project includes a parking garage that
serves as the base for a high-rise office tower with two to four stories dedicated to
retail. Of the total 396,000 sq.ft. of retail space flanking the garage, only 40,000
sq.ft. remain without a letter of intent being signed.
The mixed-use development met with such an
overwhelming response
from retailers that the developers are modifying the original plans.
Phase IA will include an 108-room hotel, originally slated for a later phase. This
building will include two floors of public rooms on the lower levels. Plans call for an
enclosed walkway over Main Street to the hotel from the parking decks. Facing an open
courtyard, stores will line the walk from the hotel to the central park in the middle of
the block. Of the 105,000 sq.ft. available for retail, all but 20,000 sq.ft. have had a
serious letter of intent signed. The third block of this phase will house an 85,000-sq.ft.
multiplex cinema with retail space of 75,000 sq.ft., of which about one-third is already
reserved.
Because of the tremendous interest in the retail
space available, Phases 1 and 1A, originally scheduled to be
completed at different times, will be built in tandem.
About two years later, Phase II will begin with a second tower consisting of apartments.
Phase III would begin about five years later with two upscale department stores, another
hotel and a parking garage.
Town Center is designed to resemble a typical small town, with residential, retail, office
and hotel facilities, everything one would find in any little burg. But in this burg, the
upper floors of the project buildings offer views of the Chesapeake Bay, the Atlantic
Ocean and the skyline of Norfolk, Virginia.
The idea of creating Town Center in the Pembroke section of the city was carefully weighed
against available data. As the project was in the planning stage, Pembroke was a section
in transition and could either go up or down in numbers. The area demographics as of 1998,
for example, included a population of 710,916 within a 10-mile radius earning an average
income of $50,588. The scope of the project, according to information supplied by Divaris
Real Estate, is to be more activity-oriented and broader in scope than any other area of
the city. Part of the activity will be generated by new office space being created, which
Divaris describes as “essentially a business park for 21st-century jobs.” Town
Center will also be pedestrian-oriented, as well as being open 24 hours a day. High-end
retailers will draw customers from both the commercial establishments and the residential
units nearby.
Virginia Beach is also one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations,
touting a PGA-sanctioned golf course, award-winning seafood restaurants and many outdoor
recreational draws such as the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Tourism brings between
2.5 and 2.7 million visitors annually to Virginia Beach, generating approximately $568
million for the city, with $43.7 million going directly to Virginia Beach’s municipal
coffers.
With added hotel, retail and restaurant facilities planned for Town Center of Virginia
Beach, these numbers have nowhere else to go but up in the future.
For leasing information, contact Gerald Divaris, president, Divaris Real Estate,
757-497-2113.