‘There’s no such thing as a “can’t miss” project’

Re: “Thumbs down: City Council-appointed advisory commission rejects $1.5B Coliseum and Downtown redevelopment plan after 3-month review,” Free Press Dec. 26-28 edition:

I would like to thank the Navy Hill Development Advisory Commission members for their due diligence and time before deciding that this plan is not a viable option.

I know that Mayor Levar M. Stoney, along with some other officials, tried to make it look like a “can’t miss” project at the expense of other agencies. We should have learned from having the Washington professional football team training camp here that there is no such thing as a “can’t miss” project. The projected income from having the Washington team here for summer camp has not materialized. The only thing that has occurred is that Richmond taxpayers are footing a lot of the bill whether they want to or not — and many of us are on a fixed income.

I know we have had many public meetings concerning the Navy Hill District Corp.’s Coliseum proposal in order to try to sell this massive project. To me, it did not pass the smell test when I looked deep into how this project would be funded. This is one reason why the advisory commission gave a thumbs down to this project.

Why don’t we put a massive amount of money in our public schools so that we can enhance the training of our children who are our future, or deal with the blight of homelessness? They, too, are human beings and many of them need our help.

It seems as if we are getting caught up in massive projects and not worrying about social issues such as schools, people, etc.

I was told a long time ago if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

If half the energy would be exerted to push our school kids for- ward, we would get a better return for our money. We also can never forget the plight of the people and those who are homeless. They need our help, especially with frigid weather on the horizon.

I respectfully ask that things be done for the greater good — the people.

ERNEST PARKER JR.

Richmond

Navy Hill development must restore the area’s black wealth

I had a daydream about the Navy Hill project.

I imagine walking from my home in Jackson Ward and reaching the Navy Hill development and being in awe of its beauty, but much more so proud that it actually evolved into something awesome because the developers and public officials really listened and took the bold steps to make it a current community of black wealth.

I see a revived black-owned bank with its main branch in the Navy Hill District, with a few other branches located throughout Richmond.

In my daydreaming, I also see a group of youths with an adult who’s pointing to a 20-story hotel as well as the old Blues Armory and new arena and mentioning that those buildings were designed by black architects who also are involved in the new development in Gilpin Court.

I read in the newspaper that the arena has been ranked as one of the top venues in the United States to include black-owned vending. A Virginia Union University hospitality school even has a partnership with the hotel and new arena in providing many of their employees.

I also see a mixture of people of various ethnicities and races living, shopping and working in this new Navy Hill development.

But what I’m most proud of is that the people involved were actually willing to humble themselves and tone down their ego and do what’s right.

The bottom line is this: Real restoration of Navy Hill must be economic restitution in making sure that much of the black wealth destroyed by years of local, state, federal and private development be revived in great measure in this project.

STUART M. SPEARS

Richmond

VCU, and not Richmond residents, stands to gain from Navy Hill project

The main beneficiary of the proposed Navy Hill project is Virginia Commonwealth University, not Richmond’s residents.

Dominion Energy Chief Executive Officer Tom Farrell II, who also heads the Navy Hill Development Corp., sat on VCU’s Board of Visitors, and his son, Peter Farrell, recently was appointed to the VCU board by Gov. Ralph S. Northam.

The newly approved VCU Master Plan quietly includes plans to partner in the Navy Hill development: “VCU and VCU Health System support the project and are exploring potential partnerships.”

There exists a tremendous pent-up demand for housing and office space near VCU’s land-locked medical campus. However, the Navy Hill Development Corp. would have us believe that the city-owned land adjacent to the VCU campus is of depressed value and won’t be developed without their help. The city-owned land adjacent to VCU is worth many times the value stated in the Navy Hill proposal.

It is unseemly that the city accepted only one bid for the $1.5 billion Navy Hill project from Mr. Farrell’s group. Then, after the bids were closed, the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) zone morphed by 800 percent from 10 blocks to 80 blocks to include Mr. Farrell’s new Dominion tower south of Broad Street.

Richmond should not be duped into thinking that the proposed dorm-like studio apartments will help our low-income residents. The project’s ballyhooed 480 new affordable housing units would be occupied largely by students at VCU’s medical campus, which has a large shortage of dorm rooms.

Likewise, VCU needs the office and research space that would be built by the growing university, regardless of the Navy Hill project.

A new Richmond Coliseum would be a venue for VCU commencements, sporting events and concerts. So why is VCU, which pays no city real estate taxes, putting no “skin in the game” toward building the new Coliseum?

It is worth noting that the much-heralded John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville was built by the University of Virginia and not by the City of Charlottesville.

The unintended consequence of the Navy Hill District proposal would be to starve city schools of funding while subsidizing a development bonanza for VCU. It would be reckless for Rich- mond to mortgage all new revenue from 80 prime blocks of its Downtown for the next 30 years for this project.

Let’s hope that Richmond City Council votes down this Navy Hill boondoggle.

CHARLES POOL

Richmond

‘Tone deaf’ project will burden taxpayers

The biggest new Coliseum in Virginia?

Hmmmm ... This is possibly the most “tone deaf” proposal in a long list of other Downtown decisions that didn’t go as planned.

Find your way off the interstate into Downtown or come to the 260,000-square-foot Coliseum another way, dodging buses and inner-city traffic to find a most likely overpriced parking place.

At the end of whatever it was you came to watch, find your car and wait and wait and wait in line to leave your parking spot — if your car wasn’t towed because you parked it somewhere you didn’t think you’d have to pay.

And then drive through a city where someone might carjack you at an intersection, or be really daring and wander into an urban space that doesn’t have the best safety record, looking for what? Affordable housing?

Or get off the interstate in Henrico County a stoplight away from a 200,000-square-foot Coliseum with no buses or city traffic to dodge on an already existing 24-acre parking lot.

Somehow it would seem this contest to have the “biggest” would best be resolved in a locker room with a ruler — a small ruler.

The abysmal chance of success of the project for 80 blocks of Downtown by the chief executive officer of Dominion Energy should not burden taxpayers — but it will.

ANN WORTHAM

Richmond