More than a hundred thousand people showed

More than a hundred thousand people showed up to tour the first houses in East Beach, a new urban infill project in Norfolk, Virginia. The 100-acre development, planned a decade ago by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (DPZ), was the site of this year’s Homearama for southeastern Virginia. Homearama is usually held in a suburban subdivision — according to the developers, this was the first time the event was held in the city. East Beach was formerly called East Ocean View, a run-down neighborhood with dilapidated apartments and Chesapeake Bay frontage. The Norfolk Redevelopment & Housing Authority hired DPZ, spent years in land acquisition, and found developers (Leyland Alliance and East Beach Renaissance) to implement the project. Out of 127 lots in phases one and two, more than 100 are sold or under contract. Lot prices have ranged from $40,000 to $195,000. Four houses have sold for more than a million dollars. Project manager Joe Barnes notes that a strong sense of place was achieved through the completion of the first group of 16 houses. The builder’s exhibition “created a way for us to get a critical mass of the neighborhood up, so that buyers can see it’s not just about the houses,” Barnes says. The first nonresidential building, a Montessori School, opened in September on Pleasant Avenue, a boulevard that forms the central spine of East Beach. Pleasant Avenue will allow a variety of uses, but buildings must look like single houses. East Beach will eventually have 700 houses and about 150,000 square feet of commercial.