Pat Robertson is back in the news: not exploring the interface between meteorology and theology but as a real estate developer in Virginia Beach. Consultants for the Christian Broadcasting Network, reports the Virginian Pilot, have unveiled detailed plans for Blenheim Park, a 500-acre complex near Regent University.
Rivaling Norfolk’s MacArthur Center and Richmond’s Innsbrook office park in size, the development would include two hotels, a movie theatre, a department store, a big-box store, and a combination of 1,000 single-family and multi-family homes. The complex would generate hundreds of millions in tax revenues for Chesapeake and Virginia Beach when completed, and contribute $15 million to $20 million a year in land leases to CBN.
The good news: Blenheim Park would be a mixed-use development integrating shops, stores, offices and 1,000 single-family and multi-family residential units into a town concept. Mixed use development inspired by (if not always true to) New Urbanism is all the rage now. I haven’t seen the plans and sketches, but early indications that the project will be well designed on a micro level.
The potential controversy: To be economically viable, the CBN development would require construction of an interchange on Interstate 64 near the existing interchange at Indian River Road. The cost of the interchange, plus other road improvements, could well exceed $100 million. Robertson would pay up to $85 million by creating a Community Development Authority and issuing bonds.
The article is unclear about the financing mechanism, saying only, “The [CDA] would capture a portion of the increases in property taxes and other taxes from Blenheim Park and use it to pay off the bonds over a 30-year period.” Does that mean (a) that the properties would be taxed at the normal rate, and a portion of the taxes will be siphoned off to support the project, or (b) that the bonds would be paid off through a tax surcharge? If the answer is the former — if CBN expects to pay off the transportation improvements through the normal taxation rate, thus short-changing Virginia Beach and Chesapeake on the cost of other government services and facilities — a firestorm will erupt as soon as the citizenry understands what’s happening. Most likely, the Robertson people are smart enough to propose the latter.
Meanwhile, there’s the question of whether the other $15 million will come from. Who will pay for that?
The first question that needs to be asked: Will Blenheim Park contribute to the creation of a community with a balance of housing, offices, retail spaces, health and educational facilities, and other amenities? This question is critical because the only way to address traffic congestion in south Hampton Roads is to create communities that support fewer, shorter car trips instead of msucling onto I-64 to reach most of their destinations. The preliminary evidence is not encouraging. Developers are saying they expect to draw visitors from 40 miles away. On what roads? Interstate 64?
The second question that needs to be asked: Will Blenheim Park develop a Transportation Demand Management plan that will offset localized traffic impact by encouraging mass transit, ride-sharing, telework and other strategies? That’s state-of-the-art development in Northern Virginia, and it needs to be in Hampton Roads as well.
This is a huge project that will shape south Hampton Roads for decades to come. If done properly, it could help ameliorate the region’s steadily worsening traffic congestion. If done improperly, it could accelerate the drift to round-the-clock gridlock. Local government officials had better get this right.
(Rendering credit: Kahn Development.)