By Ian Zack, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.
Jul. 6--VIRGINIA BEACH, Va.--A developer announced plans Wednesday for two upscale Oceanfront hotel and retail
projects that could help jump-start the city's efforts to give the aging resort strip a makeover.
Gold Key Resorts said it will break ground by early winter on the Boardwalk Resort Hotel and Villas, a classier
replacement for the old Tradewinds Hotel at 16th Street and Atlantic Avenue. The hotel was razed by the city last
spring after being damaged during construction of a nearby stormwater pumping station.
The developer also said it had purchased three hotels and vacant land between 33rd and 35th streets on Atlantic,
where it plans to spend $80 million to construct four high-end hotel towers, a parking deck and shops.
Gold Key's principals are developers Bruce L. Thompson and Edmund C. Ruffin, whose Professional Hospitality Resources
has a partnership deal with the city to build a four-star hotel, shops, parking deck and park at 31st and Atlantic.
Thompson and Ruffin are still searching for financing for the 31st Street project, but the other two already have
financing, Gold Key said.
Taken together, all three projects will raise the bar for quality accommodations at the Oceanfront.
"All that reinvestment means that the other guys that are left are going to have to bring the quality up to
compete," said David P. Shively, president of Gold Key Resorts. "In five years, you could have a totally
upgraded look at the Oceanfront. It could look totally fabulous compared to how it looks now."
The $18 million Boardwalk Resort Hotel and Villas will have 11 stories and 89 one- and two-bedroom units, split
between hotel rooms and time shares. The ritzy rooms will feature full kitchens, expensive furniture and art work,
similar to Gold Key's nearby Turtle Cay Resort and Hotel. The Mediterranean-styled hotel also will have a cafe,
shops, a health club and a clock tower rising more than 100 feet above the ocean.
The project should be complete by the spring of 2002. Professional Hospitality Resources, which will manage the
Boardwalk property, said rooms will fetch between $175 and $225 per night.
On Wednesday, the city's Board of Zoning Appeals unanimously granted Gold Key several minor zoning exceptions,
meaning the privately financed development faces no more governmental hurdles.
Shively said the hotel is just one piece of what could be a renaissance in at least a three-block area centered
at 17th Street.
The companies controlled by Thompson and Ruffin manage the Dolphin Inn and own the mortgage of the Tropicana Hotel,
both in the 1700 block of Atlantic Avenue. Both are ripe for redevelopment, Shively said. And the Breakers Resort
Inn at 16th Street already plans a major expansion and renovation.
Gold Key has also purchased the Thunderbird Motor Lodge at 35th Street, two other hotels between 33rd and 35th
streets that operate jointly as The Budget Lodge, and almost the entire block between 33rd and 34th streets on
the west side of Atlantic.
In an $80 million project that could break ground in early 2002, the developers plan to knock down the old hotels
and build four towers with some 260 hotel rooms and time shares, a parking deck with retail shops and additional
hotel or time share rooms above it. The first tower could be complete by early 2003, with the entire project taking
four to eight years.
The developments are just what city leaders have been hoping for. Since the mid-1980s, City Council has been pushing
a vision of a renewed Oceanfront that could only come with large-scale private investment in a strip lined with
30-year-old hotels and T-shirt shops.
"There's no question in my mind that we need more and more upscale hotels here," said James H. "Jimmy"
Capps, president of the Virginia Beach Hotel and Motel Association.
"That's not to say that everyone who comes to Virginia Beach wants to pay $200 per night for a room, but the
goal we're trying to reach is to improve the resort and make it a destination everyone will want to visit."
Richard Maddox, president of the Resort Leadership Council, said the city has lived up to its end of the bargain
by spending millions sprucing up Atlantic Avenue and improving hurricane defenses.
"We do need to step up to the plate," Maddox said.
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