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There was another fine attempt by a SNH writer to paint Suffolk as just plain vanilla Suffolk instead of North and South Suffolk, a nice try. Not to be contrary but going south on Main you don’t enter “Suffolk” even at the Bridge by the Hilton, according to one who knows. Andy Damiani insists you are not there until you are in a four-block area called Washington Square. It gets busy there, relatively, at least during the noon hour when “downtown” employees seek lunch within walking distance because few risk giving up their parking spot. When you hear about Suffolk parking problems it is that area of less than a square mile. Not much of a concern citywide. There isn’t much retail business done there or between Washington Square and the Hilton bridge unless you toss in the Car Wash, and McDonalds. We wonder if any one knows whether or not the Hilton is profitable. That city project is as big a financial mystery as the SCCA, the Railroad Station, and the Bureau of Tourism. A booming Suffolk business section stretches from the bridge north on 460 for a mile plus and they don’t even have streetlights or sidewalks. The other business district, even busier, runs north on 10 clear to Farmer’s Bank and is growing furiously. East Washington is recovering from decades of neglect.
Northern Suffolk “power” exists only because of the military constantly changing high tech needs. Those jobs pay more and result in more shopping centers and monstrous homes, but it’s a very small portion of Suffolk. The major part of the northern end of Suffolk was always there and had more to do with the water that abounds in that area, a very pleasant part of Suffolk. So consider the military complex up there, growing as necessary, to be a “Johnny Come Lately” with scads of the nation’s tax dollars available, for now at least.
14 comments:
It's getting a little tired hearing about special interest groups like the DBA clamoring for more parking in downtown. After so much has been done why haven't we learned from our mistakes? Expensive parking garages have been identified as being one of the necessary fixes for the districts revitalization. This is not the first time these same people have given us a wish list. Not long ago tens of millions was spent on the SCCA, Garden Hilton, Marina and Conference Center. We were told the new Tourism Office would create a buzz giving reasons for visitors to stop, shop and dine in downtown. The buzz however has been proven to be mostly Z's at a significant cost to the tax payers. The advocates for these projects have woefully failed to prove their own marketing hype.
Before we invest so much a one dollar for a garage feasibility study, or waste our time discussing yet another "build it and they will come" project, it would be prudent that we determine what needs to be done to get downtown right.
North Suffolk is experiencing dynamic commercial growth driven by the private sector. It's location is convenient. Most importantly there has been good strategic planning followed by commitment. Downtown's primary employer is government surrounded by older neighborhoods. Groups like the DBA and the Chamber need to understand they must reach out into the community if they are really sincere about downtown. Otherwise quit whinning and learn to live with the downtown you have.
Enough of Andyville and Washington Square. The only reason he calls that area downtown is because his properties are there. He could have also called it Garciaton.
The SCCA can't sell tickets, and no amount of puffery will conceal that since the number of tickets sold is on the SCCA web site. When other arts venues are subsidized it is AFTER they sell their tickets and come up short. Not selling tickets and giving them away with free social receptions for the annointed few is an insult to anyone who can see and is a taxpayer and proves beyond any argument that the public is not a participant or even interested.
Also, the SCCA has additional rental income from rent paid by the city, a restaurant, a gift shop, classes, weddings, and hundreds of annual duespayers. Also, their events are sponsored by individual businesses for each show.
If the figures the City Manager believes to justify the $450,000 annual gift is correct, that means the City is subsidizing by this one grant alone almost $25,000 PER SHOW at the SCCA. How much housing and medical care to our citizens would this cover?
The SCCA should try to cooperate with the Virginia Arts Festival abd other Tidewater activities like the opera(including light opera), the symphony pops, modern dance venues, musicals, and stage performances rather than washed out shows (several of which have been cancelled at the last minute for no interest). Even the small cities around us attract better kinds of shows without burning away over a million dollars a year of donated funds, and even our own City doesn't throw away this much unsupervided money annually on all the other more successful and pruductive "non profits" combined than on this one annual albaross.
Forget the city's expensive concrete and asphalt projects in downtown. These have proven to be nice window dressings in a building that is in a bad state of repair.
If downtown is to be saved, it can ONLY be done with the participation of businesses helped by government. An aggresive marketing plan should be developed focused on attracting high paying employers, learning institutions, research facilities and specialized businesses. This is nothing new, everyone in downtown has heard this repeated at meetings and forums. These same types of businesses populate Mayor Johnson's former borough in Sleepy Hole. Former Mayor Damiani should have asked why North Suffolk is a booming high tech corridor while downtown is in a state of attrophy.
Downtowners should demand answers not just the usual weasel words thrown about for the weak minded and under educated. They need to participate in developing a marketing plan for downtown with, but not under the city administration. If they and the Suffolk News Herald Editor wait any longer, it will be too late for downtown to recover. Mr. Reeves let us see the power of the journalist and Mr. Damiani the extent of your political influence to get it done.
Lets not forget the crosswalks, planters and street lights down main street. The train station, Prentis House and now the old courthouse for Tourism. Did any of these expensive projects really help downtown?
I believe the above cultural arts comment may be correct. The web site shows only 179 tickets have been sold and/or "comped" to friends/sponsors for the Gracie Allen Show next week. If the $450,000 annual City gift amounts to $25000 per show subsidy, then the subsidy alone is $139 per ticket sold/given away. This is insane, and doesn't even reflect probably an equal amount of loss from all the other center incomes.
Someone needs to step in with some fiscal integrity here. At a minimum the City Manager should require accountability here from a staff that obviously is sinking. Even though thousands of dollars probably were lost from firing the prevous director and paying unemployment and the hiring him back to "produce" while also paying a board member to be interim director at the same time (legal?), even this financial disaster doesn't add up to the mounting additional annual losses.
Maybe the Council could appoint a supervising commission or board to either run or liquidate and certainly expose the use and loss of so many funds here.
-A public servant
What has happened to the SCCA? Did it turn into Greece? Will the ladies be pounding down the doors of the City Manager's Office screaming that she misappropriated their money and demanding more? Will there adequate police to respond with enough riot equipment and can the fire department's aging fleet of front line trucks even make it out of the fire house. Don't expect the NSVRS to show up. Ah, what to do in these troubled times but laugh at the insanity and selfishness of mankind.
The SNH writer still doesn't get it. The only car parking problem is in a four block area of Suffolk called Washington Square, the so-called "downtown," nowhere else. There is plenty of parking behind the courthouse, the Cultural Center and by the side of the SNH building. Trouble is that downtown users can't walk. And there are other parking lots as well as street parking. The traffic problem is caused by a handful of parking lots on Main, there for the convenience of a handful of retailers. Wake up, 99% of Suffolk citizens don't care.
Downtown "planners" have been dreaming up comprehensive parking studies for years with no positive results. And the same people have been complaining for years. So tear down the SCCA and make it a parking lot. No real loss there and you solve two problems. With the money saved the city could run a shuttle to Washington Square where all those famous retailers are located.
Why does the City still rent the parking lot next to Kelleys? No more than 2 or 3 "locals" park there, and it would be much cheaper to provide them with limosine service than to keep paying thousands of dollars a month for 2 or 3 people who live on Church Street to park in the evenings. Apparently the original reason the City did this was to accomodate the anticipated massive overflow of valet parking from the hotel, which has never happened even once.
Also, why does the city provide hundreds of unneeded parking spaces at the Cultural Center, and why did the City never make Garcia honor his obligations to provide separate parking for the failed old Jefferson school "condos"(now failed amd barely occupied disccount apartments)?
Also, the City greatly overpaid for the old Sheffer downtown property to build what now is a joke road and parking to go back to the old Garcia "luxury" warehouse "condos," also a pipe dream project leaving the City with humiliating egg on its face.
The "cost" of downtown parking isn't so much a problem as is the continued gullibilty of the City that keeps subsidizing and hyping
the half dozen or so recent
failed and empty condos, lofts, flips, and apartments at the expense
of the public to promote "developers" who keep
trying to get the City to pay for their plan flashes generally laughed at by the average taxpayer and even the handful or so of large real estate owning realtors and families in the City that still control Suffolk's real estate without begging from the City. Ironically, the pan flashes tend only to come back and blame the "market" for some of their subsidized flops.
Groups like the DBA have discovered they can make old news new again. All they do is bring up something as old as the perceived parking problems and the reporters and editors at the Suffolk News Herald that cycle through Suffolk every three years or so, believe they have a scoop on the VA-Pilot or Inside Suffolk. Mr. Reeves and the reporter babes, please go through your newspapers archives before writing another breaking news "story" or "opinion".
To help matters, the DBA could educate its members and the media to avoid boring the public to death with report like; downtown traffic congestion, farmer's market, tourism's impact from bird watchers, anything that has to do with Peanutfest, NSA's Art Auction, courthouse hot dog stand, Restaurant Week and my favorite, A Taste of Suffolk.
I was taking a pleasant drive through downtown and turned down Saratoga Street. I noticed the many cared for plantings on a new mulched median and the new expensive imprinted faux brick coloured asphalt for crosswalks and parking area. This location is less than one block away from the front door of the Suffolk News Herald. This begs the question do the reporters ever leave their office and notice all the new parking next to and behind their building?
How about a new tax for downtown commercial property or an increase to the hotel and meal tax to pay for a parking garage? Propose that and watch the faces of the businessmen drop and how quiet the room becomes. The profile of attendees at DBA meetings is 85% government, 5% business, 5% media types that have no place better to go, and the rest retirees or lost visitors. Go and see for yourself, unless you have something better to do like manage a business.
We have a local paper that is deaf, blind and dumb. I quit taking the SNH years ago when the city demanded that some of the best writers be fired. Where is Roger Leonard? We need someone like him to write again on just what the city is up to, especially since Mayor Londa has her hands in so much. I thought Roger and Linda were friends, but the way she has treated him and others it looks like a Linda first policy. I guess she really did get mad about him running for mayor too. So to keep on the subject. the DBA is so disconnected from the reality the rest of use live, I never believe what thay and Andy D have to say.
It is not a good time to be in Suffolk!
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