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SPECIAL
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SPECIAL
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HAMPTON ROADS RENAISSANCE
I called Sally Kirby Hartman, the writer of this section, on Monday, March 15 -- three days after MacArthur Center opened to rave reviews in downtown Norfolk. "Sally," I asked, "have you been to the new mall yet?" "Of course," she said. "I went to Nordstrom's preview tour and the grand opening ceremony. That afternoon I went back with my 10-year-old son, and that night after dinner I went with my husband. It's wonderful!" "Oh, so you've been to the mall four times already?" "Well ... actually ... five times. We went back again on Sunday." Now Sally is an otherwise sensible person, but five trips to the mall in one weekend seemed somewhat excessive to me. So I decided to get a second opinion from Mark Rhodes, a Norfolk resident who takes most of the photographs for this magazine. "Mark," I asked, "have you been to the new mall yet?" "Absolutely," he replied. "That place is outstanding!" To date, I can't find anyone in Hampton Roads who will say anything bad about downtown Norfolk's $300 million mega-mall. Retail development is usually a mere reflection of a region's demographics, but the developers of MacArthur Center are betting that Hampton Roads is ready to move up. Even before it opened, MacArthur Center was a catalyst for downtown redevelopment. And now it's a revered symbol of the region's renaissance. Suddenly, it seems like every city and county in Hampton Roads has something to celebrate. Chesapeake has a new conference center. Portsmouth is building a luxury hotel and Virginia Beach has enhanced its oceanfront resort area. Quality-of-life amenities in other localities include museum expansions and new golf courses. All of these things will raise the civic self-esteem of Hampton Roads, but none of them will match the impact of MacArthur Center. In the failure-fraught world of urban renewal, this magnificent mall seems to be the chicken and the egg. Karl
Rhodes
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