Norfolk_web

NORFOLK, VIRGINIA 1-800-368-3097 visitnorfolktoday.com A first-class getaway. A newly revitalized Waterside District. A world of arts, dining, entertainment and waterfront recreation. And over 5,000 hotel rooms from which to explore and enjoy it all. Plan your Norfolk adventure today for business or pleasure. was part of the City’s overall strategy to promote vertical development in ametropolis that is 98 percent built out,and has almost half its propertyoff the tax roles as a result of being home to both the Virginia PortAuthority,with the second busiest port on the east coast,and the United States Navy,which has the largest naval installation in the world. “Those are tax exempt entities,” says Rigney,“so we have to go up in Norfolk, not out. So,we are looking for vertical type office developments, and as we redevelop Norfolk, it’s always in mind that something would either have to be rehabilitated, or torn down in order to make way for the new. That’s our strategy for urban revitalization and that’s what we kind of specialize in. “In order to broaden and diversify our economy, however,we also go after retail. Last year,we land- ed both Simon Premium Outlets,with a 332,000 square-foot, 85-store, Phase One, Premium Outlet development, and the region’s first IKEA,which alone, in one store,will have 331,000 square feet. Simon PremiumOutlets is scheduled to open up in June of this year, and IKEA projects that they will open in the fall of 2018. So, those are two significant retail developments. Then, there’s an area called the Military Highway corridor and the Military Circle which is a mall dating from the 1970s that has seen better days; the anchors, Sears,Macy’s, and JCPenney, all closed in the last fewyears.When the JCPenney property became available–a 200,000 square foot store, with about a 1,500-space parking lot, spread over about 15 acres -we, the Norfolk Economic Devel- opment Authority,made an offer of $2.5 million on what is assessed at $9 million, and bought the old JCPenney building. “Further, the City of Norfolk, buying into our vi- sion of a long-range, 50-year plan to revitalize the Military Highway corridor, loaned us $18 million to completely renovate the 200,000 square-foot JCPenney building into two floors of office space. And we’ve been able to attract Movement Mort- gage,which is a huge, nationwide mortgage busi- ness based out of Charlotte,North Carolina, and they are taking the entire first floor of the property –some 90,000 square feet.They’ll occupy it June 1st of this year with over 750 employees to begin with,with an additional 200 to be hired over the next 3 months. “And Sentara Health Systems,which is the dominant healthcare provider in our area, is going to lease 45,000 square feet of the available 90,000 square feet on the second level, and they too,will occupy on June 1st,with over 200 new employees. So, as of June, the former JCPenney building will have been converted from a dead space of 200,000 square feet into an operations facility with jobs approaching 1,000,with growth to approach 1,300 new jobs.And we still have about 45,000 square feet available to lease.And that’s Phase One of a multi-year plan, called Norfolk 2100,where we intend to revitalize that entire corridor over the next 50 years to include high-density residential, office development, limited amounts of retail, and the extension of our light rail system.