Virginia Beach sprawl is over: Urban development plan to turn the city into a big city metropolis (apartments, condos)

[cityboi757]

It is coming very fast. Virginia Beach, Virginia is putting to rest its long History of uncontrolled sprawl. The city is set to approve a plan that will turn its succesful town center experiment into a full fleged downtown. The town center already has the tallest building in the state, but it dosen't have any friends. That will change. Along with expanding light rail from Norfolk into thier own city, the city will continue to transform.

The Plan presentation. Note the before and after pictures.

http://www.vbgov.com/file_source/dep...n_00-final.pdf

Virgnia Beach Corridor extension pdf. I have full faith the final will be LR extension.

http://www.gohrt.com/vbtes/documents...-sep09-web.pdf

The following are notes from the council meeting taken by varider from UrbanPlanet.org


13,000- 14,000 housing units. 20,000 residents.
9-10 million square feet of office space on top of the current 2.5 million.
6 million square feet of retail.
1 million square feet of civic use.
3000 additional [COLOR=black !important][COLOR=black !important]hotel [/color][COLOR=black !important]rooms[/color][/color].

Sessoms said "The additional sq.footage blows my mind."
SGA # 4 is 1200 acres.

There are 4 distinct districts. They are:

CBD (Town Center expanded west of Indy., North to mall, East to Barnes & Nobles and Princess Anne High)
High Density. Financial District. Cultural Arts District. Theaters, Museums. Skyline.

Central Village District.
Medium density. Bohemian style. Place for local businesses to grow and prosper.

Western Campus District.
Additional schools built in a campus style setting to serve the additional population.

Waterfront Area.
Central park. Vertical, More urban, Princess Anne High. Mix of residential and office with residential facing residential. Medium- High density.

Transportation Plan:

Light Rail, Busses, Bikes, Pedestrian.

Light rail would be elevated amd within 1/2 mile of both edges of the SGA.
Indy would be tunneled throughout the entire SGA to create pedestrian oriented streets.
Constitution and Market extended to Bonney.
2 flyovers over 264 to connect to the Southern Corporate District.
4 LRT stations.
Virginia Beach Blvd. slowed down, lined with artwork, trees, street frontages.
Urban grid.


Full use of urban services (fire, police, schools).
In communication with fire, police chief, school superintendent. More fire stations, police stations, and schools will be needed.

Environmental:
Would like to be a model city. Clean up the bay. Green buildings. Urban park system.

Goals:
Attract employers.
Retain creative class.
Create a place for youth to return and have good careers.
Attract more visitors through urban tourism.

Main concern:
Transportation. A few councilmembers were concerned about how gridlocked it already is. They are afraid the enormous increase in population and activity will make it impossible to travel. (LRT is the key)

The plan has been finalized. Council votes on Nov. 10. and then implementation.

Mayor Sessoms finished the meeting by saying:

"You don't know how excited I am. We're going to do this thing."


It is coming very fast. Virginia Beach, Virginia is putting to rest its long History of uncontrolled sprawl. The city is set to approve a plan that will turn its succesful town center experiment into a full fleged downtown. The town center already has the tallest building in the state, but it dosen't have any friends. That will change. Along with expanding light rail from Norfolk into thier own city, the city will continue to transform.

The Plan presentation. Note the before and after pictures.

http://www.vbgov.com/file_source/dep...n_00-final.pdf

Virgnia Beach Corridor extension pdf. I have full faith the final will be LR extension.

http://www.gohrt.com/vbtes/documents...-sep09-web.pdf

The following are notes from the council meeting taken by varider from UrbanPlanet.org


13,000- 14,000 housing units. 20,000 residents.
9-10 million square feet of office space on top of the current 2.5 million.
6 million square feet of retail.
1 million square feet of civic use.
3000 additional [COLOR=black !important][COLOR=black !important]hotel [/color][COLOR=black !important]rooms[/color][/color].

Sessoms said "The additional sq.footage blows my mind."
SGA # 4 is 1200 acres.

There are 4 distinct districts. They are:

CBD (Town Center expanded west of Indy., North to mall, East to Barnes & Nobles and Princess Anne High)
High Density. Financial District. Cultural Arts District. Theaters, Museums. Skyline.

Central Village District.
Medium density. Bohemian style. Place for local businesses to grow and prosper.

Western Campus District.
Additional schools built in a campus style setting to serve the additional population.

Waterfront Area.
Central park. Vertical, More urban, Princess Anne High. Mix of residential and office with residential facing residential. Medium- High density.

Transportation Plan:

Light Rail, Busses, Bikes, Pedestrian.

Light rail would be elevated amd within 1/2 mile of both edges of the SGA.
Indy would be tunneled throughout the entire SGA to create pedestrian oriented streets.
Constitution and Market extended to Bonney.
2 flyovers over 264 to connect to the Southern Corporate District.
4 LRT stations.
Virginia Beach Blvd. slowed down, lined with artwork, trees, street frontages.
Urban grid.


Full use of urban services (fire, police, schools).
In communication with fire, police chief, school superintendent. More fire stations, police stations, and schools will be needed.

Environmental:
Would like to be a model city. Clean up the bay. Green buildings. Urban park system.

Goals:
Attract employers.
Retain creative class.
Create a place for youth to return and have good careers.
Attract more visitors through urban tourism.

Main concern:
Transportation. A few councilmembers were concerned about how gridlocked it already is. They are afraid the enormous increase in population and activity will make it impossible to travel. (LRT is the key)

The plan has been finalized. Council votes on Nov. 10. and then implementation.

Mayor Sessoms finished the meeting by saying:

"You don't know how excited I am. We're going to do this thing."



It is coming very fast. Virginia Beach, Virginia is putting to rest its long History of uncontrolled sprawl. The city is set to approve a plan that will turn its succesful town center experiment into a full fleged downtown. The town center already has the tallest building in the state, but it dosen't have any friends. That will change. Along with expanding light rail from Norfolk into thier own city, the city will continue to transform.

The Plan presentation. Note the before and after pictures.

http://www.vbgov.com/file_source/dep...n_00-final.pdf

Virgnia Beach Corridor extension pdf. I have full faith the final will be LR extension.

http://www.gohrt.com/vbtes/documents...-sep09-web.pdf

The following are notes from the council meeting taken by varider from UrbanPlanet.org


13,000- 14,000 housing units. 20,000 residents.
9-10 million square feet of office space on top of the current 2.5 million.
6 million square feet of retail.
1 million square feet of civic use.
3000 additional [COLOR=black !important][COLOR=black !important]hotel [/color][COLOR=black !important]rooms[/color][/color].

Sessoms said "The additional sq.footage blows my mind."
SGA # 4 is 1200 acres.

There are 4 distinct districts. They are:

CBD (Town Center expanded west of Indy., North to mall, East to Barnes & Nobles and Princess Anne High)
High Density. Financial District. Cultural Arts District. Theaters, Museums. Skyline.

Central Village District.
Medium density. Bohemian style. Place for local businesses to grow and prosper.

Western Campus District.
Additional schools built in a campus style setting to serve the additional population.

Waterfront Area.
Central park. Vertical, More urban, Princess Anne High. Mix of residential and office with residential facing residential. Medium- High density.

Transportation Plan:

Light Rail, Busses, Bikes, Pedestrian.

Light rail would be elevated amd within 1/2 mile of both edges of the SGA.
Indy would be tunneled throughout the entire SGA to create pedestrian oriented streets.
Constitution and Market extended to Bonney.
2 flyovers over 264 to connect to the Southern Corporate District.
4 LRT stations.
Virginia Beach Blvd. slowed down, lined with artwork, trees, street frontages.
Urban grid.


Full use of urban services (fire, police, schools).
In communication with fire, police chief, school superintendent. More fire stations, police stations, and schools will be needed.

Environmental:
Would like to be a model city. Clean up the bay. Green buildings. Urban park system.

Goals:
Attract employers.
Retain creative class.
Create a place for youth to return and have good careers.
Attract more visitors through urban tourism.

Main concern:
Transportation. A few councilmembers were concerned about how gridlocked it already is. They are afraid the enormous increase in population and activity will make it impossible to travel. (LRT is the key)

The plan has been finalized. Council votes on Nov. 10. and then implementation.

Mayor Sessoms finished the meeting by saying:

"You don't know how excited I am. We're going to do this thing."

[cityboi757]

Charlotte blogger says VaBeach is the city to watch:
The QC Life

[Nebat]

Very interesting and exciting! Maybe in a hundred years it will feel like a "real" city. In the meantime, no matter what the population is, Norfolk is in my mind the only real city in Hampton Roads. And to a lesser extent Portsmouth and Newport News.

[cityboi757]

Originally Posted by Nebat

Very interesting and exciting! Maybe in a hundred years it will feel like a "real" city. In the meantime, no matter what the population is, Norfolk is in my mind the only real city in Hampton Roads. And to a lesser extent Portsmouth and Newport News.

Yeah I agree. Norfolk feels like a 'city' throughout its entire city limits.

But regardless of that, this plan is very exciting and has the potential to become three times as big as Norfolk and since VaBeach already has half a million residents with no true urban core, with an urban core they could approach a million in 40 years.

The mayor said this is basically a 40 year plan.

[Billiam]

Good luck! I look forward to its development

[Nebat]

Originally Posted by cityboi757

Yeah I agree. Norfolk feels like a 'city' throughout its entire city limits.

But regardless of that, this plan is very exciting and has the potential to become three times as big as Norfolk and since VaBeach already has half a million residents with no true urban core, with an urban core they could approach a million in 40 years.

The mayor said this is basically a 40 year plan.

Oh yeah, I'm not knocking Va Beach, I do like the status of having a half million city in the state, but like you I do prefer a dense urban core. You never know since Norfolk is already established and dense, with the competition from Va Beach it could spark off a highrise building boom in both cities. In the near future we could have smaller twin New Yorks! That would be awesome.

[cpterp]

Good for Va. Beach. The typical Southern sprawl is terrible. Anyway shouldn't this be on the VA board?

[southernnaturelover]

Originally Posted by cpterp

Good for Va. Beach. The typical Southern sprawl is terrible. Anyway shouldn't this be on the VA board?

I don't like the sprawl either, but most Southerners want a house with a yard, not a condo or "town home", I don't expect that to change.

[DeaconJ]

Originally Posted by southernnaturelover

I don't like the sprawl either, but most Southerners want a house with a yard, not a condo or "town home", I don't expect that to change.

Actually, most Americans want a house with a yard and don't really want to live among high-density. That's why so many inner cities have lost population while their sprawling suburbs have exploded - not only in the South, but in almost every large U.S. city.

[cityboi757]

While it is true southern culture is to live in the suburbs, the thing about VaBeach is it's such a large city, all the suburban neighborhoods will remain intact. All this plan is doing is turning the CBD into a urban metropolis.. The market for condos and apartments in the city has already been tested. There are multiple high rise condos and apartments that are 100% occupied. The young professionals love big city living. They are looking at 20,000 residents moving into downtown VaBeach in the coming decades.