The East Beach project along Chesapeake Bay

The East Beach project along Chesapeake Bay in Norfolk, Virginia, is attracting homebuyers to a section of the city that used to be so dangerous that cab drivers and pizza deliverers refused to go there. “Forty-five to fifty houses are under construction or complete and about 17 families have moved in,” said Joseph Barnes, general manager of the 100-acre development. East Beach’s offerings range from cottages and townhouses to a house of 5,000 square feet, including a third floor filled entirely with a recreation room. Builders have priced their products from $275,000 to $1.175 million. The city spent $55 million to buy and tear down buildings and relocate low-income residents from the area, which had been in deplorable condition despite its waterside location. The East Beach Company is filling the site with 700 dwellings on small lots, converting the area from a financial drain on the city to a fiscal boon. “Many of the garages contain one-bedroom flats intended to make the community an address for renters, not just the affluent,” the Virginian-Pilot noted in an editorial. The city government, in sessions with citizens and with help from outside planners, particularly Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, devised the vision for the area. Like a number of new urban projects, East Beach has a Montessori school, containing three classrooms. It occupies an approximately 3,200-square-foot building that Barnes says “looks like a simple Victorian house.”